Royal Ballet, Romeo & Juliet, Royal Opera House
- Performer/company: Royal Ballet
- Production: Romeo & Juliet
- Venue: Royal Opera House
londondance.com - Graham Watts
Performance: in rep until 16 Mar 2010
The Opera House’s affair with the world’s greatest love story began one autumn night in 1956 when the Bolshoi Ballet opened its first season in London with Lavrovsky’s famous interpretation of Romeo & Juliet, led by a 46 year-old ballerina (Galina Ulanova). Her performance was acknowledged by a ten-minute ovation and, according to a contemporary account, ‘curtain call after curtain call’. Following an unsuccessful attempt to gain the rights to perform the Lavrovsky choreography themselves, the Royal Ballet commissioned Kenneth MacMillan to make his own neoclassical interpretation, which was premiered in 1965 and led by a 45 year-old ballerina (Margot Fonteyn). With her partner, Rudolf Nureyev, she received 43 curtain calls in an ovation lasting 40 minutes.
Last night, Tamara Rojo (a comparative ingénue at just 35) received just a couple of curtain calls but here was a Juliet of such radiance and naturalness as to rival the very best to have been seen on this stage. She doesn’t act; she doesn’t dance; she doesn’t mime; she simply is Juliet, in every guise and emotion, articulating Shakespeare’s poetry without the need of speech, although guided and abetted by Prokofiev’s magnificent, sweeping score. Her artistry carries to every corner of this vast Opera House, each expression easily conveying the joy, the dilemma, the deceit, the ecstasy and the suffering of her brief journey from childhood through fulfilment and onto death.
Normally, Rojo dances opposite the great Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta, but his indisposition through injury meant a late call-up for the young British Principal Rupert Pennefather. This unintended pairing proved to be a good one, since Pennefather is a natural Romeo in look, physique and an easy mastery of MacMillan’s movement, although he needs to tone down an occasional tendency to be too obviously acting a part to extend these natural gifts into the dramatic context. He delivered the big dancing moments well and partnered Rojo effectively such that the three main pas de deux for the doomed lovers (balcony, bedroom and crypt) did not disappoint in their romantic and tragic fluency, radiating a breathtaking passion from first to last.
There were some first-night nerves, none more so than in the obvious spacing problems in a normally tightly co-ordinated trio for Romeo, Mercutio (José Martin) and Benvolio (Sergei Polunin) outside the Capulets’ Castle and in a much below par Mandolin Dance. However, there were superb performances in the supporting cast especially the incomparable Gary Avis as Tybalt (a masterclass in expressive characterisation); Christopher Saunders and Elizabeth McGorian as the Capulets; with Laura Morera, Francesca Filpi and Samantha Raine adding fun and spice as Verona’s finest harlots.
The fight sequences generally worked better than I’ve seen for some time, with vigorous fencing seamlessly melding into the choreography without the obvious stage-fighting reserve that often comes with the territory of a very full ensemble. Those actors and students cast as the townsfolk of Verona enhance this excitement by becoming a tightly co-ordinated rippling mass organism flowing alongside the fights between Tybalt and Mercutio/Romeo. The effective organisation of so many people on one stage, contrasting as it does with the intimacy of the two lovers alone, is one of the great features of MacMillan’s masterpiece and the Royal Ballet’s coaching never fails to deliver the full impact of these big crowd scenes.
Romeo and Juliet continues at the Royal Opera House until mid-March when it is due to reach its 435th performance, a statistic, which proves that it is now firmly imprinted in the Royal Ballet’s DNA. If you can see just one production that defines the company, then this should be it, and for a Juliet of the most poetic and distinctive eloquence, one to melt even the hardest of hearts, then it must be Tamara Rojo.
Press - Jenny Gilbert, Independent on Sunday
Performance: in rep until 16 Mar 2010
‘At the centre of this clamorous vortex is the hush of the balcony duet, and I've not seen one more believable than Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg's. A couple in real life, what they present, soapy as it sounds, is total empathy, he alert to her every impulse.’Press - Mark Monahan, Telegraph
Performance: in rep until 16 Mar 2010
"There is nothing to choose between them [Alina Cojocaru & Tamara Rojo] in the romantic encounters – both are dazzling – but she [Rojo] also brings touches of brilliance to later, superficially un-spectacular moments, that are astonishing."
Press - Luke Jennings, Observer
Performance: in rep until 16 Mar 2010
‘Kenneth MacMillan died in 1992, but his Romeo and Juliet is built on a core of emotional truth, and its choreography does not age. Instead, every cast sees the work born anew. Choose with care.’
Press - David Dougill, Sunday Times
Performance: in rep until 16 Mar 2010
‘Rojo is a superb Juliet, her dancing flawless throughout, and dramatically completely convincing. At times, it felt as if she was acting for both of them, and needed to.’
Press - Clement Crisp, FT
Performance: in rep until 16 Mar 2010
**** ‘At the heart of the evening, Tamara Rojo is MacMillan’s Juliet in all her impulsive sensuality and stubborn defiance, and – no less significant – in the ravishing outlines of the dance, curling and flowering within the musical phrase.’Press - Zoe Anderson, Independent
Performance: in rep until 16 Mar 2010
*** ‘With Carlos Acosta injured, Tamara Rojo's ardent Juliet was partnered by Rupert Pennefather. They don't quite make a pair. Juliet is one of Rojo's best roles, but on this evidence, Romeo isn't Pennefather's.’Press - Judith Mackrell, Guardian
Performance: in rep until 16 Mar 2010
**** ‘It is an exceptional performance, and what makes its conclusion harrowing is that Rojo takes us there in convincing stages.’
Press - Debra Craine, Times
Performance: in rep until 16 Mar 2010
**** ‘If at first Pennefather’s classical technique needed more finesse it very quickly smoothed out the rough edges once his Romeo got his hands on Rojo’s Juliet.’
Press - Luke Jennings, Observer
Performance: May & Jun 08
‘When Kenneth MacMillan choreographed Romeo and Juliet for the Royal Ballet in 1965, he created the most fiercely coveted ballerina role of them all. The canon isn't short of tragic heroines - Giselle, Odette in Swan Lake, Tatiana in Onegin - but it's the beautiful, doomed Juliet every ballerina dreams of dancing.’
R&J
Press - Zoe Anderson, Independent
Performance: May & Jun 08
**** ‘This summer's Juliets include debut performances from Marianela Nuñez and Sarah Lamb, two of this company's strongest young principals…Nuñez, with her bubbly stage presence, is the most distinctive, the most surprising.’
Press - David Dougill, Sunday Times
Performance: May & Jun 08
‘… notable debuts in its challenging title roles from Marianela Nuñez and Thiago Soares at the matinee, and Sarah Lamb with an experienced Romeo, Viacheslav Samodurov, in the evening.’
Press - Mark Monahan, Telegraph
Performance: May & Jun 08
‘Compared with Nuñez, whose luminous beauty hit you between the eyes from the start, Sarah Lamb's Juliet was a slow-burn, but always nuanced and quite riveting. From the outset, she was a little more mysterious, her delicate frame more subtly communicating the sense of tentative womanhood starting to blossom through passion.’
Press - Judith Mackrell, Guardian
Performance: May & Jun 08
**** ‘Despite individual flaws, this is one of those Romeo and Juliets that feels as though it is being rewritten by its dancers.’
Press - Luke Jennings, Observer
Performance: 16-30 Oct & 1-25 Nov 07
‘One of this year's most rewarding spectacles has been the evolution of the Royal Ballet's Ivan Putrov from accomplished but formal classicist to passionate dancer-actor.’
Press - Luke Jennings, Observer
Performance: 16-30 Oct & 1-25 Nov 07
‘Although only 21, McRae is one of the most technically accomplished dancers in the Royal Ballet and he brought an elegance and lightness of touch to sequences that have undone much more experienced performers.’
Press - Clement Crisp, Financial Times
Performance: 16-30 Oct & 1-25 Nov 07
‘… his Romeo is younger, quieter than most in the early scenes, and then, when the fuse of his passion for Juliet is lit, burning with an inner fire that lights every step..’
Press - Debra Craine, Times
Performance: 16-30 Oct & 1-25 Nov
**** ‘Stepping in for an injured Johan Kobborg, and with just seven days to learn the leading male role in Kenneth MacMillan’s three-act ballet, the plucky Australian [Steven McRae] partnered Alina Cojocaru’s Juliet with the kind of passion and promise that marks him out for stardom.’
Press - Sarah Crompton, Telegraph
Performance: 31 Mar 06
‘The stage was drenched with flowers and there was barely a dry eye in the house when Sylvie Guillem took her bow amidst thunderous applause on Friday at the end of what is widely thought to have been her last performance as Juliet.’
