UK Edition
Review
ENB make Nureyev's drama soar - Romeo and Juliet, Festival Hall, review
In her Royal Ballet days, Tamara Rojo was an absolute marvel of a Juliet. In fact, a March 2006 performance at Covent Garden that paired her passionate Capulet with Carlos Acosta’s lusty Montague remains perhaps the most emotionally devastating thing I’ve ever seen on a stage.
Now both director and star principal of English National Ballet, she is not slated to perform in ENB’s “Romeo” (at the rather un-balletic Royal Festival Hall until Saturday), but this turns out to be less regrettable than it might at first seem. For, to judge by Tuesday night’s gripping show, she appears to have passed her Method-like feeling for this romantic tragedy on to the entire company.
Although it tells exactly the same story, and with only occasional adds or cuts to the score, this is however a very different production from the Royal Ballet’s. This isn’t the famous 1965 version choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan, with designs by Nicholas Georgiadis, but the 1977 creation, choreographed by Rudolf Nureyev for himself and London Festival Ballet (as ENB was then), and designed by Ezio Frigerio. For sheer grandeur of spectacle and erotic intensity in the pas de deux, it is no match for MacMillan’s, which remains the all-time gold standard. But Nureyev’s – here returning to London for the first time since 2011 – nevertheless remains a handsome and completely valid alternative.
There’s a stronger sense here of the central couple helplessly caught up in a gigantic socio-political machine, with Tybalt as ubiquitous and coercive as the KGB – how not to see this in the light of Nureyev’s dramatic defection to the West in 1961. Other novelties – for those used to the MacMillan version – include a prominent, character-defining solo for Romeo in Act I (this also very much an early showcase too for its creator and original star’s brilliance), two late scenes in and on the road to Mantua, some deft theatrical touches (Romeo and Juliet’s hoped-for but doomed final reconciliation actually playing out on stage as Friar Lawrence tells them about the potion), and plenty of nicely judged comic flourishes. I’m not sure much is added by the quartet of fates-cum-furies who occasionally assemble, but they are a minor distraction, especially in a first-night performance as strong as Tuesday’s.
This was one of those rare evenings where there wasn’t a single weak link across the entire, impeccably rehearsed troupe, or indeed in the pit. (The ENB orchestra, under Gavin Sutherland, made magnificent work of Prokofiev’s uniquely stirring score.) Most prominently among a super supporting cast, James Streeter (as Tybalt) and Fernando Bufalà (Mercutio) were identically excellent, both dancing with terrific attack, speaking through the steps with complete clarity and mining every last ounce of their characters’ chalk-and-cheese dramatic potential, yet without ever slipping into caricature.
Streeter dared to be almost sympathetic in an early scene with his cousin, but later tapped wells of white-hot ferocity in his disappointment at her choice of beau, while Bufalà was charm itself and genuinely funny. What might have been a slight dagger-malfunction aside, they also handled their respective death scenes with aplomb, Bufalà making particularly agonising work of Nureyev’s clever choreography for Mercutio’s passing. (The latter is a negative of MacMillan’s: here, Mecutio is desperately trying to tell his pals that he’s gravely wounded, but they refuse to take him seriously.) Always tricky to carry off, in any “Romeo”, Act II was as skin-pricklingly exciting as it was tragic.
At the centre of the evening were Isaac Hernández and Erina Takahashi’s very comely star-cross’d couple. Although not equipped with a particularly lofty jump, he is a meticulous, sensitive and charismatic performer, bringing refinement and boyish enthusiasm to that Act I solo (especially the complex footwork), and making his Romeo a rounded, credible and endearing character who constantly finds himself thrust into impossible situations.
Takahashi, meanwhile, danced beautifully and acted her heart out, sending Juliet on an expertly delineated journey. She put the special crispness and buoyancy of her movement to perfectly girlish use early on, seemed utterly destroyed during the Act III family scenes, and was fearlessly unguarded in her clinches with Hernández. He returned this warmth – his Balcony Scene variation was as delightful and as finely etched a display of jumping for joy as you’ll see all year – and their chemistry blazed.
So, a 40-year-old, second-tier retelling of a 400-year-old story, in a not-quite-ideal venue? Absolutely – but also entertainment as vital, as alive and as stirring as can be.
In London until Aug 5, then in Bristol in the autumn. Tickets and details: ballet.org.uk