Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, National Gallery

METAMORPHOSIS: TITIAN 2012: Titian inspires three artists to produce new work plus costumes and sets for three new ballets

Titian inspires three artists to produce new work plus costumes and sets for three new ballets

Three paintings by Titian depicting stories from Ovid’s poem Metamorphoses welcome you to the National Gallery’s exhibition Metamorphosis: Titian 2012. Diana and Callisto shows Diana casting out the pregnant nymph Callisto from her company. Diana and Actaeon depicts the young Actaeon out hunting and stumbling into a sacred grotto where Diana and her nymphs are bathing; and in The Death of Actaeon, we see the goddess exacting vengeance on the intruder by turning him into a stag to be torn to pieces by his own hounds.

Birthday Offering/ A Month in the Country/ Les Noces, Royal Ballet

BIRTHDAY OFFERING / A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY / LES NOCES: Dame Monica Mason closes her 10-year Royal Ballet directorship with a final choice of favourites

Dame Monica Mason closes her 10-year directorship with a final choice of favourites

A birthday offering, a wedding celebration - with that, and one further creative collaboration ahead, Dame Monica Mason makes her farewell as director of the Royal Ballet after 10 years. The last programme of favourites from the store cupboard must always be a tricky one, but true to form the mistress of the great occasion (anniversaries have been a mainstay of her programming) picked rituals and ceremonies that stressed company ethos and values.

South Bank Show: The Male Dancer, Sky Arts 1

SOUTH BANK SHOW: Nureyev, Baryshnikov and Acosta make a superbly glamorous trio, but few new revelations

Nureyev, Baryshnikov and Acosta make a superbly glamorous trio, but few new revelations

Male dancers are a puzzle to British audiences, where they are an uncomplicated, taken-for-granted treasure in Latin or Slav countries. I point this out gratuitously, as it's a point that wasn't touched upon by Melvyn Bragg's film about three iconic men of ballet, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Carlos Acosta.

The Prince of the Pagodas, The Royal Ballet

THE PRINCE OF THE PAGODAS: The Royal Ballet revive Kenneth MacMillan's orientalist fairytale

The problems of Kenneth MacMillan's fairytale are the performers', not the creators'

As Mrs Thatcher used to say, don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions. Solutions have been flung with a will at the problem ballet of Kenneth MacMillan’s last years, his orientalist fairytale The Prince of the Pagodas - the Royal Ballet’s retiring director Monica Mason revived it last night as one of her last presentations, determined that a new generation should have the chance to love it.

Ballo della Regina/ La Sylphide, Royal Ballet

BALLO DELLA REGINA: Sylph meets Scot. And magic happens

Sylph meets Scot. And magic happens

Ballo della Regina is a strange piece, for many reasons. A piece of minor Balanchine, it was created late in life for a dancer he clearly admired but who was not core to his vision. Strangest of all, he used music by Verdi, a composer whose music he had only choreographed to in his very early days as a journeyman opera-house ballet-master, when he did not get to choose.

Ballet industry demands end to "too-thin" dancers

Ballerina Tamara Rojo heads speakers at launch of new NHS initiative

Ballerina Tamara Rojo, director-designate of English National Ballet, is making waves even before she takes up her position in September. Next Monday she is a keynote speaker at a day of events at the Royal Society of Medicine launching the first-ever NHS treatment centre for injured dancers and rejecting the pressure for extreme thinness in performers.