Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet has been housed and dressed in Nicholas Georgiadis's designs for so long that it still comes as a shock to see Birmingham Royal Ballet's 1992 production. Paul Andrew's painterly sets glow with so much colour and intense decorative detail after the more monumental, shadowed vision of Georgiadis.
But while the Covent Garden based Royal Ballet have been dancing Romeo and Juliet decades longer than BRB, this is a ballet that particularly suits the latter. Its stormy plot and hustling crowd scenes play directly to the uninhibited, spontaneous style that has always been BRB's main strength.
And even if too much of the company's dancing currently lacks technical polish and attack, their great collective virtue is that they dance the ballet as if discovering its story for the first time, rather than treading carefully around its classic status.
Thursday's lovers certainly had a bloom of innocence and exuberance on them. Sergiu Pobereznic, whose floppy haired charm has not altered in years, played Romeo true to type as a puppyish flirt whose credulous heart is fatally too eager to fall in love. Ambra Vallo's Juliet started as a pert little miss, so prettily entranced by toys, boys, and clothes that you could imagine her listening to the Veronese equivalent of S Club 7.
Once into her love scenes, the strong powered lines of Vallo's technique and the bright sharpness of her footwork facilitated a fierce impetuosity that deepened throughout the ballet. Pobereznic may not be a virtuoso, but his easy grace and responsive partnering made him an excellent foil for her more high flying attack. Even if their duets did not resonate to the darkest and most ecstatic extremes of which MacMillan's choreography is capable, you could see their bodies and their imaginations sparking a passionate chemistry.
Backing them up were some equally vivid ensemble performances. David Justin's Tybalt was an enjoyably convincing career thug, his solid body and his sullen face twitching in anticipation of a fight. Dorcas Walters' Harlot did a lovely line in good humoured vamping, and Rachel Hester found genuine moments of pain in the Nurse's silly helplessness as she watched Juliet's plight. The fight scenes (which I have not enjoyed so much in ages) were at flamboyantly full tilt, and everyone died with amazing vehemence and style. It was a real company performance.
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