Carlos Acosta has been refining his portrayal of the Messenger of Death for more than a decade now, and the result is baleful, sadly amused and utterly implacable.  

The Australian [Steven McRae] star’s superhuman mastery of time and space makes short work of Oberon’s mercurial solos, his port de bras embellishing the scherzo’s cyclonic pirouettes like a fantastical gyroscope.  

By miraculously simple means the work [Song of the Earth] engages with the great themes of death and renewal, and in Carlos Acosta as the Messenger of Death and Tamara Rojo as the Woman, it has interpreters who allow those themes to permeate their every movement.