It’s hardly unusual for artists to find inspiration across art forms — from Shakespeare drawing on Holinshed’s Chronicles to Broadway adapting films like Les Misérables and Sunset Boulevard. Still, a few sceptical eyebrows must have raised when Christopher Wheeldon set out to turn Laura Esquivel’s 1989 gastronomy obsessed love story, Like Water for Chocolate, into a full-length ballet. Yet who can question such ambition when the result is so thrilling?
The story centres on Tita (Ella Newton Severgnini), whose emotions are so intense they magically spill into her cooking, affecting everyone who tastes it. She’s forbidden to marry her childhood love, Pedro (Francisco Serrano), and the two dancers are perfectly paired as their love story evolves over the decades. Wheeldon keeps the stage picture constantly alive — from women bustling around a kitchen table, to jubilant street celebrations, and intimate pas de deux that move the story forward with real emotional depth. There is also a lot of fun in store for the lovers who playfully ride away on a life size prop horse.
With so much happening, the almost three-hour evening flies by — at times almost too quickly, with key plot points easy to miss. (For anyone unfamiliar with Esquivel’s novel, reviewing a synopsis beforehand is advised.) The women remain the heart of both the story and the dancing, and the choreography pulses with emotional energy. Marianna Tsembenhoi brings fire to Gertrudis, while Sumina Sasaki’s solo captures the anguish of Rosaura’s painful illness with passion and pathos. But it is Severgnini’s luminous presence that anchors the evening. Whether through a delicate tilt of her head or a burst of fury, her expressive power keeps us riveted.
Joby Talbot’s Latin-infused score lifts the production further, particularly in the crowd scenes, where rhythms swell and dancers leap in joyful waves. Conducted with verve by Jonathan Lo, the orchestra adds colour and texture with instruments more at home on the streets of Mexico City than in a European opera house — flamenco guitar, panpipe, maracas — creating a sound world that feels by turns jubilant, sensual, and elegiac.
Bob Crowley’s designs, inspired by Rothko’s reds and oranges, bring a painterly richness to the stage. His costumes blend Mexican motifs with hints of military tension, evoking both the story’s intimacy and the turbulent backdrop of the Mexican Revolution.
Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate is as intoxicating as the story it’s based on — full of Latin American feeling, colour, and heat. The production captures the complexity of Esquivel’s sense of love and art, and reminds us that the most powerful stories, like the richest meals, are made to be savoured, not just digested.
Like Water for Chocolate
Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon
Music: Joby Talbot
Inspired by the book by: Laura Esquivel
Designer: Bob Crowley
Conductor: Jonathan Lo
Orchestra: Royal Opera House
Cast includes: Ella Newton Severgnini, Francisco Serrano, Marianna Tsembenhoi, Sumina Sasaki
Photo credit; Andrej Uspenski
Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes, including 2 intervals