The Art Newspaper

Ofili's Titianesque backdrop and Royal Ballet dancers

The fourth and final performance of "Metamorphosis: Titian 2012" at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on Friday 20 July is a sell out, such is the demand by balletomanes and visual art aficionados to be there as the Royal Ballet's best dancers chassé in front of sets while wearing costumes designed by the artists Chris Ofili, Conrad Shawcross and Mark Wallinger. Inspired by Titian, Ofili has painted a lush, tropical Eden-before-the-Fall backdrop. Shawcross has devised a robot with limbs that mirror the dancers' movements while Wallinger's sculptural, two-way mirror defies that age-old theatrical superstition about mirrors being bad luck on stage. Meanwhile, a hop, skip and jeté away at the National Gallery, Wallinger's contribution to the exhibition "Metamorphosis: Titian 2012" (until 23 September) has been causing a few raised eyebrows—and strained necks. To glimpse his latterday Diana—a woman in a shower—viewers become voyeurs, less Actaeon in a forest glade and more peeping Tom at the bathroom key hole.

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