Reviews page
Heather Ogden in Romeo and Juliet. Photographer: Andrew Oxenham. Image Courtesy of The National Ballet of Canada.
This is a page where we keep you up to date on reviews of Ms. Ogden’s performances.
The Nutcracker 2007
“Carrying out the role of Peter, the boisterous stable boy transformed into the patrician Nutcracker/Prince, Guillaume Cote dances with high-kicking attack and exacting bravura. It’s easy to see why he’d fall head-over-heels in love with his Sugar Plum Fairy, Heather Ogden, who indeed dances like a dream come true. Their pas de deux is the essence of romantic love.” – The Toronto Star 2007
Chopper (ProArteDanza) 2007
“Matjash Mrozewski’s two new works up the ante, and this is where traditional ballet fans might get lost. In Chopper, for National principal dancers Guillaume Côté and Heather Ogden, the choreographer has fashioned a devilishly difficult en pointe pas de deux driven by David Lang’s solo percussion score, suitably called The Anvil Chorus. As percussionist Graham Hargrove bangs on his arsenal of instruments, Côté and Ogden challenge and provoke each other in highly controlled moves that have them curling in on each other with some virtuoso solo steps thrown in for good measure.” – The Globe and Mail 2007
“An exultantly out there, let’s-go-for-broke duet for National Ballet stars Heather Ogden and Guillaume Cote is both the dancing and choreographic highlight of a six-piece program Toronto-based ProArteDanza, in its fourth season, opened Wednesday night at Harbourfront Centre.” – The National Post 2007
“Matjash Mrozewski’s duet for Guillaume Cote and Heather Ogden, Chopper, on the other hand, relies on the flawless partnering and technical audacity of a regular pair of National Ballet of Canada principals. Their natural fit and inherent musicality makes this work one that could have been performed in silence.” – The Toronto Star 2007
Giselle 2007
“The second act, when the grand spectacle of the ensemble is revealed in the personification of the ghostly Wilis, is a real treat for ballet lovers. The mood is sombre. Under the commanding presence of their Queen (the excellent Heather Ogden, one of the National’s gems), the corps de ballet animates the stage with both drifting, floating grace, then stony and stationary graveyard sculptures.” – Edmonton Journal 2007
”Piotr Stanczyk made the thankless role of Hilarion, the bumpkin who actually loves Giselle (and is so unfairly drowned for his devotion) into something emphatic and tragic, and Heather Ogden was a singular Myrtha, queen of the Wilis. From her very first pivots in arabesque, heels grinding angrily into the earth and her hard little face above, there’s no doubt about it: she’s mad and she’s mean.” – The Vancouver Sun 2007
Balanchine’s Don Quixote (Toronto) 2007
“Heather Ogden plays the several incarnations of Dulcinea – the Don’s faithful servant girl, the accused shepherdess Marcela in the village scene, the damsel in distress of the dream and the Madonna in the death scene. Ogden has the charisma to make Dulcinea a figure of strength. She is a beautifully controlled dancer who understands her role, managing to be aloof yet compassionate at the same time. She must also dance in various styles, which she executes with elegant grace.” – The Globe and Mail 2007
“Ogden is glorious in her interpretation of the servant/madonna/princess beyond compare. As a character dancer, Surmeyan is not so much partner as support and observer in a pas de deux where the nobleman meets a vision of his female ideal… Ogden’s solo in the garden in Act III is a show-stopper. She seems to float on air as she exits on point in tiny rapid steps.” – The Toronto Star 2007
The Nutcracker 2006
“The statuesque Ogden has grown into a brilliant artist with impeccable technique, and she romps through Kudelka’s choreographic challenges with the precision of a surgeon’s knife. Along the way, she has acquired a vibrant stage personality and acting skills which make her a complete package as a prima ballerina.” – Globe and Mail 2006
“The magisterial classical pas de deux for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier — rapturously danced at Saturday’s opening by youthful duo Heather Ogden and Guillaume Cote –is a show-stopper.” – The National Post 2006
“At the same time, Kudelka’s Nutcracker presents wall-to-wall ballet dancing, by both adults and children. And the choreographer and his designer Santo Loquasto spared nothing in the creation of breathtaking spectacle, extending the Czarist Russian visual theme to include a giant gold Fabergé egg to house the Sugar Plum Fairy. When she emerged from that (possibly Freudian) egg on Saturday to dance her first solo, Heather Ogden was both a dancer to capture a balletomane’s admiration and a storybook ballerina in whom every little girl in the audience could see herself.” – The Toronto Star 2006
“From the work of seasoned veterans like Victoria Bertram, who still steals hearts as Baba, the children’s nurse, through dancers like the affable Cote, Stacey Shiori Minagawa (as the Snow Queen) and Heather Ogden (as the Sugar Plum Fairy) to a tight and disciplined corps capable of melting hearts as Snow Maidens and making them bloom with joy as a whole bouquet of flowers, this is a superb showcase for the talent that is at the heart of any successful classical ballet company. ” – The Toronto Sun 2006
Symphony in C 2006
“It fell to the elegant Heather Ogden, partnered with great sympathy by Etienne Lavigne, to attempt the notoriously difficult adagio, Second Movement. This great classicist actually made demanding technique look easy, standing on one pointe shoe while her other leg and both arms constantly changed positions.” – The Globe and Mail , 2006
“Balanchine’s Symphony in C demands brave, crackerjack dancing, which it got on Wednesday, especially from Heather Ogden – watch that gal go!” – The National Post, 2006
“Heather Ogden performs the second movement’s Adagio with a superb curve to her back and a weightless quality to her step.” – The Toronto Star 2006
The Sleeping Beauty 2006
“Heather Ogden, who made a sensationally confident and radiant debut as Aurora on Saturday night, was wonderfully matched with the dashing Guillaume Côté…” – National Post 2006
Don Quixote (Edinburgh) 2006
“But this was not a show of mere visual effects – there was real poignancy, strongly conveyed by Momchil Mladenov’s mournful looking Don Quixote and Heather Ogden’s beautifully danced Dulcinea, the love of his dreams. Indeed the dancing, particularly in the corps de ballet scenes, was quite breathtaking, with the dancers light, airy and on points for most of the time.” – 50connect.co.uk 2006
“…Heather Ogden’s Dulcinea in the palace garden is a graceful interpretation of the beautifully off-balance choreography Balanchine developed…” - The Guardian 2006
Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux 2006
“To Heather Ogden and Nehemiah Kish went the honour of taking the National Ballet of Canada’s first official steps on the stage of Toronto’s spanking new opera/ballet house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Before a sold-out, well-dressed crowd of 2,000, the two young principal dancers performed George Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, the opening number in NBC’s inaugural performance on June 22… To remind everyone that NBC can do contemporary, too, the program included William Forsythe’s Herman Schmerman… seen right after the opening Balanchine piece (a reworking of classical material in its own right in which Ogden, recently coached by Balanchine muse Suzanne Farrell, showed mature poise).”- The Montreal Gazette 2006
“Heather Ogden and Nehemiah Kish had the privilege of being the first dancers to break in the new hall. They performed Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux choreographed by George Balanchine, Ogden showing an ease and flow that is hard to achieve in such a tricky piece. With the horseshoe arrangement of seats, even those in the fifth ring would have the sense that the dancers were performing directly to their seats.” – The Toronto Star, 2006
“Heather Ogden and Nehemiah Kish were first up, paired in Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, a playful romp and an ideal showcase for two of the company’s emerging talents.” – The Toronto Sun, 2006
Romeo and Juliet 2006
“Heather Ogden did not disappoint. For evidence I offer up my memories of Juliet full of play teasing her nurse (Lisa Robinson) and dancing with a new dress for her first ball. Wilting roses longing for the sweet dew of youth were temporarily transported back in time when their love was shiny and new. Standing all alone on center stage, the light from the heavens shines upon Juliet as she blossoms from a 14 year old teenager into womanhood before our very eyes. The jury of the Hummingbird Centre reaches a unanimous verdict: Miss Ogden is the picture of beauty, freshness, vitality and innocence on all counts!” – Michael Goldbarth Critical Dance
Theme and Variations 2006
“Heather Ogden and Nehemiah Kish… look elegant as partners. both tall and long-legged, they have masterful technique and their natural restraint leads to a tasteful balance without one overshadowing the other. They are a quintessential classical dance couple.” – The Globe and Mail, 2006
“Nehemiah Kish and Heather Ogden achieved the best partnering of the evening in a stunning pas de duex. Each difficult lift and turn flowed effortlessly form the preceding action.” – The Toronto Star, 2006
“The variations have a mathematical purity and pattern, and they are marvelously embellished by pas de deux by spectacular Heather Ogden and Nehemiah Kish.” – Keith Garebian, Stage and Page.
Apollo 2006
“Heather Ogden’s Calliope cuts a fine figure of adventurous dancing.” – Keith Garebian, Stage and Page.
Jewels – Emeralds 2006
“If Balanchine had had the good fortune to set eyes on Heather Ogden he would have instantly been on his knees. Ogden, the lead in “Emeralds”, had a naturl affinity for his choreography that is as much visceral as thoughtful. She quite simply gets what he’s all about and never lards a performance with phony emotion. She lets the steps, transmuted through her expressive body, do their business.” – The National Post, 2006
“Heather Ogden was sublime…she was gossamer-light, as she seems to float on the music.” – The Toronto Star, 2006
“Heather Ogden and Patrick Lavoie…were exquisite as the lead couple…” – The Globe and Mail, 2006
The Nutcracker 2005
“Elegantly poised, Ogden could have been mistaken for an exquisite china doll but when she stepped out onto the stage to dance a demanding opening variation she was transformed into a radiant image of fantastical womanhood. And my, how she danced! Ogden has that indefinable quality of authority that makes her a cool, commanding presence but her dancing is also full of the kind of youthful daring that keeps you on the edge of your seat. She does not hold back.” – The National Post , 2005
“Emerging from a Fabergé egg encrusted in gold we have our dream come true, the exquisitely winsome Heather Ogden. To the celestial tinkling of the harp and celesta, she glissades over the stage in a series of very precise piqué turns. Ogden’s sylphidine beauty left everyone starry-eyed; our imaginations of Sugar Plum Fairies having been fulfilled beyond our collective mind’s eye. The children tell the court of their mouse adventures, who reward them with the desserts of the ballet.” - Michael Goldbarth Critical Dance
Balanchine’s Don Quixote (Washington) 2005
“…But for my money it was Ogden who best captured what I imagined was Balanchine’s intent. Ogden was at once a real manifestation of feminine humanity and a symbol of idealized womanhood. Her dancing combined physical daring and lyrical poeticism, washed in a delicate aura of spiritual purity…” – The National Post, 2005
Cinderella 2004
“…As for Heather Ogden’s performance as Cinderella, she danced barefoot, she danced with one pointe shoe, she danced with two pointe shoes, she danced her socks and pointe shoes off!..” – Michael Goldbarth Critical Dance
Stravinsky Violin Concerto 2004
“The highlight was the Ballerina Beauties Heather Ogden and Tanya Howard coloring their dance in a spirit only the sweet dew of youth can inspire. Every little twist and turn was imbued with a refreshing extra oomph. When they came out together to receive their well deserved applause and bravos galore all a glow in a delicious sheen of dew, it was at that pointe I realized the future of the National Ballet of Canada is indeed in very talented pointe shoes! They are much more than pretty flowers; they truly are gorgeous works of living art.” – Michael Goldbarth Critical Dance
