It is now four years since we discovered the Royal Ballet's wonderful repertoire and one of the first productions we saw was Kenneth MacMillan's classic Shakespeare adaptation ROMEO AND JULIET with Steven McRae dancing Romeo. Steven soon became our favourite male dancer, a performer with real star quality, and when it was announced he was dancing the role again this year, tickets were snapped up. However on his last day of filming CATS, McRae had a knee injury which required a surgical procedure. "Romeo, Romeo... wherefore art thou Romeo?" He's resting his knee that's where he is. This is sad as we also missed him last year in SWAN LAKE and MANON through being out injured. Anyway where were we? Oh yes, "Two households both alike in dignity..."
McMillan's production originated in 1965, his first full-length work for the Royal Ballet. He had expanded a pas-de-deux filmed for Canadian TV with the young pairing of Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable and was determined they would be his original star-crossed lovers. But the production was due to tour the USA after it's premiere and the American promoter wanted the star wattage of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev and the Royal Ballet management gave in, so Gable and Seymour were demoted to the second cast and even had to teach the two more famous dancers some of the moves which must have been particularly galling. McMillan felt betrayed by the decision and left the Royal Ballet the next year to run the ballet company at the Deutsche Ballet in Berlin. He would return to Covent Garden as the Artistic Director in 1970 but resigned seven years later to be the company's principal choreographer.
I still find it remarkable that a production can remain for 54 years in a repertoire - no matter how hard you look you will not find Franco Zeffirelli's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING or Peter Wood's LOVE FOR LOVE at the National Theatre or Peter Hall's THE HOMECOMING at the Royal Shakespeare Company. But it's a minor quibble as ROMEO AND JULIET is still a glorious creation, involving from the start with a thrilling choreographed sword fight in the city square which ends with five dead bodies piled up centre-stage, McMillan's Verona is always a hair's breath away from danger.
John B Read's lighting and the original evocative set design by the late Nicholas Georgiadis combine to give you an immediate understanding of place while McMillan's truly thrilling choreography is realized by Julie Lincoln and Christopher Saunders. Sergei Prokofiev's score sounded excellent played by the Opera House orchestra under the baton of Paul Murphy.
Steven McRae's replacement was Ryoichi Hirano and Juliet was danced by Akane Takada - who always seems to be on when we visit. Hirano was technically fine but was dramatically colourless; Takada embodied the full arc of Juliet, delicate and joyful at the start, troubled and passionate in love and death at the end.
As usual, there was fine support from James Hay and Bennet Gartside as the deadly rivals Mercutio and Tybalt, Kristen McNally and Thomas Whitehead were fine as Juliet's controlling parents, and there was great scene-stealing from the vivacious strumpets led by Itziar Mendizabal.
Despite Steven McRae's absence, ROMEO AND JULIET was wonderful to see again and to relive Kenneth McMillan's creative genius.
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