Choreography of a different sort...

[athersgeo]

...or "Rachel went to the ballet" tonight.


I've long been an admirer of Prokofiev's music for Romeo and Juliet and when, about two or three months ago, my weekly mailshot from Ticketmaster advertised the English National Ballet coming to Bristol to perform Romeo and Juliet, WITH Nureyev's choreography...well. Couldn't really say no to that! Throw in that my mother likes ballet too and you've got the makings of a pretty good early Christmas present.

And so it's proved to be. They've managed to reignite my interest in the actual story Romeo and Juliet (I've also discovered that I remember more from Eng Lit about it than I thought!). Mercrucio was hysterical. Tybalt was beautifully haughty (and OH! can the man swing a rapier!) Nurse was a little on the young side, but played very well off Benvolio and Mercrucio... As for Romeo and Juliet themselves, they were fantastic. She was really beautiful; he was goregous; both of them were really excellent at displaying the emotions required to make the story work, in particular they were extremely good at displaying being in love, without being really saccarine about it. Everybody danced brilliantly (although that's less of a headline, seeing as it IS the English National Ballet!), the music was really well done too...and the sword fights were superb.

Yeah. Only I could go to a ballet and get a sword fight!!!

For those who don't know the play too well, there are several sword fights (in fact, early in the first act, there's a short discourse on the subject of the rapier vs the English broadsword...I digress). Mercrucio fights Tybalt (and loses), then Romeo is goaded into fighting Tybalt (killing Tybalt and getting himself banished in the process). There's also assorted fighting and sword fighting earlier in the piece between various minor characters. All of them were done very well (and I take my hat off to all the dancers who have to do the sword work - hard enough to get dance choreography right without having to remember to be in the right place to parry a sword swing!), but the fight between Romeo and Tybalt was something else altogether. Two swords. Three swords. Four swords. Sword vs Dagger. All very fast paced and still telling the story.

Really, really top stuff.


So that was my evening. How was yours?

Comments

[antigone-ks.livejournal.com]

Oh. Oh, god, how wonderful. I've got the Nureyev/Fonteyn R&J on VHS and have damn near worn it out.

And stagefighting! W00T!

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

W00T, most definitely :) I've always said sword fighting was balletic; last night was the proof...!

[cmar-wingnut.livejournal.com]

I do like ballet, although I haven't gone in years... (a shame since New York gets some of the best companies around). Last one I saw on TV was a rather odd but very good all-male version of Swan Lake, forgot the name of the company.

Anyway - I'm a big Shakespeare fan, and from your description I'm quite envious!

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

I've heard about the all male Swan Lake (I've got a vague memory of it being the Royal Ballet - I know there was quite a fuss kicked up about it, certainly!) - I'm getting to see Swan Lake (in general!) in January, so it'll be two doses of ballet in quick succession, after having not been since I was 9 or 10!

Rather disconcertingly the chappie playing Romeo looked decidedly similar to a certain other type of choreographer. He was just similar enough that at least for a second, I actually wondered if it was!

[cmar-wingnut.livejournal.com]

I think it might be a bit much to expect him to be a top-level ballet dancer, on top of everything else!

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

I know! But it was a definite doubletake moment when he walked on stage - which was at the back on the opposite side of the stage from where I was sitting. When he got front stage on my side, it became more obvious that actually, he and Dan don't look that much alike at all.

Though I DO have to say the mental image of Dan in a tutu is now going to be with me for several days...!

[cmar-wingnut.livejournal.com]

Oh, Lord, now you've done it. (Although I find the image of Dan in ballet tights rather more appealing.)

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

Oh, the tights is definitely appealing :D but the tutu was funnier ;)

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

http://www.ballet.org.uk/yatsen_chang.htm - this is him

[cmar-wingnut.livejournal.com]

There's some resemblance - from a distance, anyway.

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

*nods* Like I say, once he came down to front stage right (which was only about twenty feet away from me!), it was clear it wasn't!

[donna-k.livejournal.com]

The all male Swan Lake (which wasn't actually all male, but had male swans) was Adventures in Motion Pictures, choreographed by Matthew Bourne and starring Adam Cooper (who plays the grown up Billy Elliot in that film). It's about to start a new London season as a 10th anniversary production and is also available on DVD. I love it, but have never seen it live :( (and Adam Cooper looks good in black leather in the ballroom scene :D)

oh, and Adam Cooper used to be a principal dancer at the Royal Ballet but left acrimoniously to be able to work with Matthew Bourne again (he'd been loaned for Bourne's previous ballets, but I don't think the Royal Ballet thought a male swan lake was appropriate! Especially when it was more popular than anything they were producing at the time!)

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

*snerk* Thanks for that; I knew there was some mention of the Royal Ballet in there somewhere... :)