The McRae/Vassilev Project

Last Updated on September 15, 2026

Two Virtuosi of Dance and Music Strut Their Stuff at the Linbury

3.0 out of 5.0 stars

Two virtuosi of dance and music, respectively, Royal Ballet principal dancer Steven McRae and violinist and principal guest concert master Vasko Vassilev came together in the Linbury, the second stage of the house they call home, to perform, reminisce and pay homage to one of the great classical musicians of all time, Niccolò Paganini.

The McRae/Vassilev Project is exactly that: a project, a collage of ideas and sketches,  rather than a coherently developed show. It is, nevertheless, entertaining and engaging enough, due to the sparkling artistry of its two leads and the stellar support offered by Royal Ballet principal Sarah Lamb, McRae’s long-standing colleague and stage partner, and pianist Pamela Tan-Nicholson, a frequent Vassilev collaborator.

Helmed by the prolific opera and theatre director Natalie Abrahami, and choreographed by McRae’s fellow Australian Loughlan Prior, The McRae/Vassilev Project is split into two distinct halves: the first designed as an introduction to the two performers, the second focused on the mysterious figure of the 19th century Italian violinist, guitarist and composer Niccolò Paganini.

The opening is truly magical: with the Linbury plunged in absolute darkness, a violin sounds a cascade of notes, the sweet other-worldliness of which grips your heart and soul.  Slowly a hazy spotlight reveals Vassilev standing centre stage playing his violin. He is joined by Steven McRae and Sarah Lamb, who go on to perform a neo-classical duet.  So, they seem to say, this is what we do.

But who are we?  The stage now becomes a rehearsal studio, where McRae and Vassilev shoot the breeze, as it were.  Both immigrants to London, they recall their previous disparate lives: McRae growing up as a regular Australian kid in a suburb of Sydney, Vassilev born into a musical family in Communist Bulgaria.   Fans of both, who filled the long sold-out theatre, know the basics: how McRae’s parents, despite knowing nothing about ballet, nevertheless found him a good teacher; how Vassilev developed as a child prodigy and was given the “honour” of meeting the Bulgarian Communist leader Todor Zhivkov (a soft smirk tells us what he thought of that…).   Despite not being voice artists, the two tell their stories with humour (Vassilev, mostly) and earnestness (McRae) and somehow manage to stay just this side of corny.

It was particularly commendable that McRae, who twice cheated career death after serious injuries, including a ruptured Achilles tendon, didn’t bring self-pity into the sequence that references those dark days, set against backcloth projections of X-rays; nor did he boast of his extraordinary willpower and determination to overcome adversity, commenting simply, “resilience its a choice and it doesn’t come easy”.

The first half ends with an extract from Czárdás, the piece that first brought McRae and Vassilev together and displayed McRae’s talent for tap dancing.

The mood alters completely in the second half.

Now the visual harks back to the rumoured demonic nature of Paganini’s virtuosity.   All performers wear black, with the lining of their tailcoats a striking purple.  All the music is associated with Paganini, including the famous occasion when he played the Variation on ‘Moses in Egypt‘ by Rossini on a violin with just one string, which Vassilev did to stunning effect.

Here McRae gave full rein to his extraordinary tap dancing, with the divine Sarah Lamb meeting him step by step in her black pointe shoes – sporting a fetching black wig, she appeared to enjoy the challenge after 22 years in the Royal Ballet, during which she has danced all the major classical roles and created new ones, many alongside Steven McRae, but possibly not tap dancing on pointe – until now.

At some 100 minutes, The McRae/Vassilev Project flows smoothly enough, despite its obvious joints, and does the job its creators intended: to entertain, while telling audiences a little more about themselves as people and artists. I would just add a note to lighting designer Prema Mehta: shining blinding lights onto the audience may be very fashionable, but it’s painful, annoying and, it seems to me, entirely pointless.

McRae/Vassilev Project is at the RBO Linbury until 19 September. Returns only
Dur.: 1 hour 40 mins inc one interval

Linbury
Bow Street
London WC2E 9DD

Telephone: 020 7304 4000