Royal Ballet team up with Dario Marianelli and Es Devlin for First World War ballet

He won an Oscar for his stirring soundtrack to the Second World War tragedy Atonement. Now Dario Marianelli is working with designer Es Devlin and the Royal Ballet on a tribute to the fallen of the First World War.

The pair have teamed up with choreographer Alastair Marriott for his new ballet, The Unknown Soldier, which Royal Ballet director Kevin O’Hare said would offer “a fresh look at the subject of” the Great War.

Mr O’Hare said: “It is all about collaboration and in a way it feels the lines are very much blurred between the choreographer, the designer and composer and they all work together to create a piece that will hopefully have a real emotional heart.”

He said Devlin, 46, who has worked with Kanye West and Beyoncé as well as the National Theatre and the Old Vic, was “much more than a designer”. He said: “I encouraged them to get together and they started talking about how best to tell the story and it is very much not in a costume drama way but really looking at it from today’s eyes, looking at what the First World War was, what it did to people and their personal stories.”

Marianelli, 54, an Italian, won the best original score Oscar in 2007 for Atonement, which was directed by Joe Wright and starred Keira Knightley and James McAvoy as doomed lovers. He also composed the soundtrack to Wright’s Darkest Hour, and earlier worked on his versions of Pride And Prejudice and Anna Karenina. Marianelli studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Film and Television School.

The Unknown Soldier, inspired by the The Tomb of The Unknown Warrior who was buried at Westminster Abbey in 1920, opens on November 20 after the centenary of the end of the war and will feature footage from the conflict and interviews with veterans.

The new Royal Ballet season also includes revivals of classics including The Nutcracker and Romeo And Juliet.Also announced today is the new season of work at the Royal Opera House. Director Oliver Mears has hailed its forthcoming production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle as “one of the most ambitious undertakings for any opera house”.

Music director Sir Antonio Pappano, who will conduct four complete performances of the four separate operas later this year, said he would need to get into “training” for the job as it is “a kind of Everest”. Other shows planned include Billy Budd, a family version of Hansel And Gretel and Verdi’s Requiem.