It is rarely good news when you get a call from your boss when you have just got home from work.
For Matthew Ball, a first soloist of the Royal Ballet, the phone call led to what he has called “one of the most unusual and special performances” of his career.
He was asked to rush back to the Royal Opera House and dance a key role in Giselle, a part he had performed only once before, after the American star David Hallberg injured himself during the first act. It had been Hallberg’s long-awaited comeback, almost three years after a devastating foot injury.
Ball, 24, had been rehearsing all day and had just returned to his flat in Clapham, southwest London, where he was planning