As a ballet score, Romeo and Juliet almost writes itself onto the stage, sound-painting the street fights and the love duets in swaggering detail. Yet if the colour and brio of Prokofiev's realism are a gift to choreographers, they work almost as well for concert-goers, who have only to close their eyes to imagine the story unfolding. And this is exactly why Rostropovich's idea of a semi-staged performance of the work is so mad.
To watch him conduct and to listen to the music are sufficiently theatrical in themselves. Why bother to impose a bizarrely compromised and irritating half-ballet onto the experience - especially when so many classical companies dance the real thing?
Space is the obvious limitation on Vladimir Vasiliev's efforts to choreograph 40 dancers from the Lithuanian National Ballet around the LSO. His cast perform on a cramped platform raised behind the orchestra, on a narrow strip at the front, and along aisles between the seated musicians. Set design is even more minimal, though the dancers obviously wear costumes and so, mysteriously, do the extra brass and percussion players, who file on and off in hooded robes.
But the biggest problem for dance in this set-up is holding its own against the visual drama of the orchestra and against the distracting sense that an overenthusiastic kick will send one of the musicians flying.
Maybe another choreographer and another company could overcome these limitations. But Vasiliev's choreography, all steroids and stamina, lacks musical and dramatic sophistication. Much of the supporting dancing is as scrappy as the acting, although Egle Spokaite could be a more interesting Juliet in another production. This is a Romeo and Juliet to enjoy with your eyes shut.
· A version of this review appeared in later editions of yesterday's paper.
