Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo at the Royal Albert Hall – review

The Royal Albert Hall has been split in two for Cirque du Soleil’s latest annual residence, with Corteo being performed on a traverse stage that bisects the cavernous auditorium. As with the show itself, it’s a hugely impressive technical accomplishment, even if it leaves you slightly mystified regarding why it’s been done at all.

Created by Daniele Finzi Pasca and Line Tremblay, Corteo ostensibly tells the story of an old clown, Mauro (Stephane Gentilini), who reminisces about his life during his own funeral. It’s never quite clear whether he’s meant to be in the afterlife (the presence of angels would suggest so), or taking one last look back before the end. But perhaps this ambiguity is the point; as described in the programme, Corteo – from the Italian for ‘procession’ – is “a rapturous fete where illusion teases reality.”

The acts themselves loosely represent the stages of Mauro’s life, starting with some trampolining on the beds in his grandmother’s house. It’s perfectly sweet, though it doesn’t get close to the wow factor in 2023’s Kurios when the artists jumped as high as the lighting rig. We also get some cyr wheel action, which works well on the rounded stage, a kind of classy pole dance routine from Stephanie Waltman, and some clowning around on a golf theme (not often you put those words together).

But the stand-out moment of the first half arrives when Mauro appears with The Clowness (Valentyna Paylevanyan), a performer with a form of congenital dwarfism, who is attached to three enormous helium balloons and essentially flung around the auditorium by the audience. Much as the spectacle, and danger, of this is thrilling, I was also troubled by it. Does this act really have a place in 2025? It feels almost akin to dwarf-tossing under the guise of artistry, and should surely be revisited.

It doesn’t help that, shortly afterwards, another performer with a similar condition, Grigor Pahlevanyan, is goaded by The Giant (Victorino Lujan) into attempting some see-saw gymnastics with him. Later on, Pahlevanyan and Paylevanyan play Romeo and Juliet in a farcical puppet theatre scene which, again, is concurrently both an impressive spectacle and a deeply problematic one. Less troubling is a straightforward juggling routine and the Acro Ladder, in which Roman Munin balances atop a long single ladder and puts someone such as myself who can barely climb a stepladder without getting giddy to shame.

The second act also features some further aerials and a visually arresting climactic routine of gymnastics in which multiple performers swing with clockwork precision around a playground of horizontal bars. Quite how this relates to Mauro’s entry into the afterlife I’m not sure, but this duly occurs via bicycle overhead. The less said about the whistling/water glass musical interlude the better, but the production itself is accompanied by some enjoyably jaunty klezma-style music from Maria Bonzanigo and Jean-Francois Cote, even if the lack of a visible band (besides one lone musician in each corner of the auditorium) is a pity.

As ever with Cirque at the Hall, the visuals of it all – shout out to set designer Jean Rabasse and costume designer Dominique Lemieux – are spectacular, and the way the company so utterly transforms the space, particularly in this instance, is genuinely jaw-dropping. But the content and the concept both feel underwhelming, particularly considering that the moment that should be considered its centrepiece feels compromised.