Article by:
Lyndsey Windship
It's 40 years since Rudolf Nureyev made this Romeo & Juliet for English National Ballet (then known as London Festival Ballet), a piece full of fast-paced choreography, fateful doom and Venetian bawdiness, and it stands the test of time.
Although this is a story of star-crossed lovers – and originally a showcase for Nureyev's own talents as Romeo – the production is emphatically an ensemble piece, all about the feuding families, where the root of the tragedy lies. On the busy stage, heavy with red velvet robes and Renaissance detailing, bickering quickly turns to brawling. Romeo's Montague mates are a gang constantly up to ribald mischief, taunting with the 15th-century equivalent of massive bantz and plenty of choice Italianate hand gestures.
Choreographically, you've never seen so many steps. It looks as if Nureyev was trying to use up every step he knew, all crammed into Prokofiev's gorgeous phrases. In the ensembles, the result is occasionally untidy, but it matches the coarseness and spirit of the crowds; for the young lovers, it manifests as giddiness, two teens high on youthful infatuation.
Isaac Hernandez's Romeo is a dreamer pursued by bad luck (even the beggar he kindly gives a coin to immediately drops down dead), and there's a lot of playfulness between him and Erina Takahashi's multifaceted Juliet.
The storytelling is clear and comprehensive, and there are elements here that bring out drama other productions miss: Juliet's conflict over Tybalt's death, for example. We see the confusion of her grief, her hopeless and helpless love for Romeo even as he's the cause of her misery. At other times, as in the final scenes, it doesn't reach the emotional heights of, say, Kenneth MacMillan's version (the one the Royal Ballet dance). But 40 years on, or rather 400 years on, this is a story that's still worth telling.
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