Grand Theatre, Leeds
****
The Chinese are in for a treat. Northern Ballet Theatre flew into Beijing yesterday to tour Massimo Moricone's other smash hit dance drama, A Christmas Carol, in Guangzhou, Taiyuan and Tianjin. What the Chinese make of the Dickensian frolic remains to be seen, but the company is on top form and Romeo and Juliet, although 10 in February, is still as sharp as a thrust from a Montague sword.
The latest star cross'd lovers, Daniel de Andrade and Charlotte Talbot, are a potent partnership. A fluid, elegant dancer, de Andrade combines strength and sensitivity as he cleverly supports and manoeuvres Talbot, making her debut in the role. His Romeo is not so much a lad about town as a caring dreamer. Yet he shows he can slug it out like the rest of his clan when he noisily despatches his enemy in a frenzy of syncopated stabbing.
Talbot makes a promising start, her Juliet leggy and coquettish, swiftly switching from spoiled child to a woman overwhelmed by desire, body arcing in waves of pleasure. Dark and alluring, she is a Juliet to cry for: the girl who has met the wrong boy but has the guts to die for him. Moricone punctuates "the fearful passage of their death mark'd love" with a series of inventive pas de deux, the teenagers undulating in waves of lust, hands hungrily exploring faces, bodies interlocking and soaring to the Prokofiev score.
De Andrade enfolds his bride like a cherished possession. Their little gestures, new wedding rings glinting, are tragically repeated in the crypt when he mouths a silent scream as he tries to dance with her lifeless body, her limp arms round his neck. Her dying moment, as she curls his corpse round her in a final embrace, is one of the most moving in the ballet repertoire - this was electric.
Minus an artistic director since the death of Christopher Gable and the brief sojourn of Italian Stefano Giannetti, the NBT is obviously no rudderless ship. The company is in full sail dramatically, thanks to coach Patricia Doyle, who has encouraged the dancers to make the drama as relevant as possible for today's audiences.
While action centre stage enthrals, it's the little vignettes around the edges that make this production so memorable, every performer totally absorbed. The adulterous Lady Capulet, a lethal mix of ice and fire from Noi Tolmer, paddles palms with lover Tybalt amid the gold, black and scarlet panoply of the Capulet ball. Lord Capulet (Luc Jacobs) shoots frantic apologies to Paris as Juliet rejects his suit while in the crowd scenes the Montagues and Capulets insult each other with convincingly ribald gestures.
Hironao Takahashi's Mercutio is the dazzling joker in the pack, his swaggering turned staggering death a brilliant physical soliloquy, while Fiona Wallis gives the nurse far more emotional depth than the usual bawdy old minder.
