The new Carlos Acosta: Matthew Golding interview

He's been called the Brad Pitt of Ballet and he could be the new Carlos Acosta — what's certain is Royal Ballet's new signing Matthew Golding is a star
Brad Pitt of ballet: it's clear Golding's star is rising Pic: Adrian Lourie
Lyndsey Winship29 May 2014

When Carlos Acosta announced at the weekend that he would retire from classical ballet at the end of the 2015/2016 season, the next question had to be: who will step into his shoes? Who could bring regal poise and boyish charm to the classic leading roles of the repertoire like Carlos? Enter Matthew Golding, the Royal Ballet's latest acquisition and the archetypal prince if ever there was one. All square-jaw and startling blue eyes, he’s nicknamed Ballet's Brad Pitt for a reason.

A danseur noble with pristine technique and excellent partnering skills, the 28-year-old Canadian has already had a pretty meteoric rise to the top of the ballet food chain, starting out at American Ballet Theatre and being appointed principal dancer at Dutch National Ballet at the age of just 23. But even though he’s currently rehearsing Acosta’s role in Don Quixote, Golding baulks at the idea that he could ever replace the Cuban.

“Carlos was one of my idols growing up and he still is,” says Golding. “In school, watching his videos, we’d be thinking, ‘Maybe one day we can see him dance live. Maybe one day we can meet him’. And then you do and you realise he’s totally down-to-earth. What he’s accomplished is incredible. I asked him, ‘What’s the secret, Carlos?’ And he said, ‘Just hard work, my friend, hard work’.”

Golding has his work cut out for him, then. Even more so now the scales look as though they are tipping in the friendly rivalry between London’s two big ballet companies, English National Ballet, based at the Coliseum, and Covent Garden’s Royal Ballet.

When Tamara Rojo left the RB to run ENB, taking Alina Cojocaru with her, and laid out plans to move in a new direction, she made last year’s ballet news all about her new company. When it came to the battle of the ballerinas, it seemed she was winning.

But then the RB bounced back, poaching ENB’s Vadim Muntagirov, who, alongside Acosta, Edward Watson and Steven McRae, certainly made for the strongest male line-up. But the final coup for the RB was hiring Russian firecracker Natalia Osipova. Golding is partnering her in his upcoming shows and is more than a little starstruck. “You never felt an energy like that,” he says. “I mean, holy cow!”

It’s not just Osipova’s energy that has wowed the young dancer, it’s the capital he has just made his part-time home. “London is the hardest-working place,” he tells me, opening his eyes wide for emphasis. “I think it’s just something in the air. It’s buzzing here, you know? You feel it in the morning on the Tube — that’s new for me. I’m used to living in Amsterdam, where I get on my bike and ride six canals over to work. Now I’m getting the rhythm [of London]. The English are really hard-working people, they’re completely driven.”

Leaps and bounds: A scene from The Sleeping Beauty by The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House Pic: ©Tristram Kenton

Not that Golding is a slouch. On top of fulfilling remaining commitments at Dutch National and dancing in galas around the world — sometimes jumping on a plane, rehearsing, performing and flying straight back, missing out sleep in between — he’s currently learning five new ballets with the RB and has debuts coming up in Manon and The Dream as well as Don Quixote.

The pressure is on and sometimes he feels it. “We all go through moments when we’re a little insecure, when we don’t really know where our legs are,” he says. “You’re very naked on stage: the lights are on, you’re all done up — it’s very revealing, a humbling experience.”

Playing Des Grieux in Manon is a highlight and its choreographer, Kenneth MacMillan, was one of the reasons Golding wanted to come to the RB. MacMillan brought passion, psychodrama and a dose of realism to the often fantastical world of ballet. Does that mean Golding is looking for meatier roles than the charming but vacant princes?

“I’m more than a prince, for sure, but I’m happy to be a prince,” says the man who calls himself an entertainer, not an artist, and is eager to please his audience. “It’s important we continue the classical male tradition.”

But aren’t those roles sometimes a bit empty, in character terms? “It depends how you look at it,” he says, “but you could say that with contemporary too. There’s not much more than steps sometimes.”

There’s been a trend recently for all-male showcases — Kings of the Dance with Ivan Vasiliev, and Ivan Putrov’s Men in Motion — aiming to prove that the role of the male dancer is more than just supporting a ballerina. But for Golding, partnering ballerinas is exactly what he loves about the job. “It’s difficult to touch base on [emotions] when you’re not with a woman on stage, you know?” he says. “You learn to highlight what they feel good at and if you make that person feel good, it’s really enjoyable knowing you gave them that.”

Tamara Rojo certainly enjoyed being partnered by him in ENB’s Swan Lake at the Albert Hall last summer, in a guest performance most notable for the full-on snog she planted on him at the show’s climax — none of your usual dry stage-kissing. “Look at him. Who wouldn’t?” said Rojo after the show. But Golding is too gentlemanly to reveal how much he enjoyed it. “Yeah, I mean, uh...” he flounders. “I was in the moment. I was very lucky to dance alongside her.”

Perhaps he doesn’t want to offend his real-life girlfriend, Anna Tsygankova, a dancer he met at Dutch National Ballet. She still lives in Amsterdam with their two pointy-eared Abyssinian cats (Golding gets his phone out to show me pictures). They’re renovating their flat, so Golding is back and forth between Holland and his Hampstead digs, dividing his life between curtain calls and knocking down partition walls (with a lot of hanging around at Luton airport in between).

But despite the itinerant existence, London is where he wants to be. “I hope to be here for at least 10 years,” he says. “There’s a good vibe here. I’ve worked in a few companies where you can feel like people are nervous, a little fearful for their job, you know?”

He might be talking about Moscow’s Bolshoi, where Tsygankova started her career and where there is intense competition for roles. Certainly, he says, “she left because stuff was not so nice there”.

There’s another reason Golding wanted to come to the UK: his grandmother. A war bride who came from Kent, she used to queue for standing tickets at Covent Garden in her youth.

She is proud her grandson is now dancing on that same stage but she’s prouder still that he recently received an invitation to meet Prince Charles and Camilla at St James’s Palace. “But it’s on opening night so I can’t go!” he moans. “Maybe I can send the invite to my grandma; she was always, like, ‘You have to be polite enough to dine with the Queen’.”

So it’s granny who’s to thank for turning the boy from the Saskatchewan prairies into ballet’s perfect prince.

Matthew Golding appears in The Dream on June 6 at the Royal Opera House (020 7304 4000, roh.org.uk)

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