Sadler’s Wells has announced the staging of a new production, The Most Incredible Thing. It’s a full-length dance work with original music by the Pet Shop Boys.

The Most Incredible Thing is based on a Hans Christian Andersen story, making for what a press release describes as a “modern fairy tale…which celebrates the power of art in the face of human destruction.” The choreography is by Javier De Frutos, and Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have composed an original score for the production, which is set to premiere at Sadler’s Wells in Spring 20111.

Tennant and Lowe were introduced to Sadler’s Wells over four years ago by The Royal Ballet Principal, Ivan Putrov, who asked them to write a ballet score for him; the electronic pop veterans and collaborator Matthew Dunster decided to use the Andersen story as the narrative basis for the informal commission. Putrov will take a lead role in The Most Incredible Thing, which will also boast design by Katrina Lindsay, film and animation by BAFTA-winning Tal Rosner, and a 26-piece orchestra in addition to a dancing cast of 15.

The Pet Shop Boys had the following to say: “This is a very exciting project to be part of. In the past we have written music for the club dancefloor so to write music for the ballet stage seems like a logical development. Also we have always been fascinated by giving our music a theatrical context.”

Tennant and Lowe, who performed at Glastonbury last month, released their tenth studio album, Yes, in 2009. No strangers to inter-disciplinary collaboration, in the past they’ve worked with the likes of Derek Jarman, Zaha Hadid and Sam Taylor-Wood, producing the latter’s cover of The Passions’ ‘I’m In Love With A German Filmstar’ for Kompakt. They co-wrote the 2001 West End musical Closer To Heaven with Jonathan Harvey and in 2004 performed a live soundtrack to Eisenstein’s silent film Battleship Potemkin in Trafalgar Square with the Dresden Sinfoniker.