65 years after its premiere, the Royal Ballet presents Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée. This affectionate portrait of village life, blending exuberant humor with brilliantly inventive choreography, is undoubtedly Ashton’s love letter to rural England. With Ferdinand Hérold’s cheerful score and Osbert Lancaster’s colorful set designs, La Fille mal gardée whisks us away to a pastoral idyll.

Lise, the only daughter of Widow Simone, is in love with the young farmer Colas, but her mother has far more ambitious plans for her. Simone hopes to marry her off to Alain, the son of the wealthy landowner Thomas. But Lise, determined to marry Colas and not Alain, devises a plan to outwit her mother.