đź’“ Romeo and Juliet ballet. Music by Sergei Prokofiev. Libretto by Leonid Lavrovsky and Sergei Prokofiev. Choreography by Kenneth MacMillian. Staged 2019 at the Royal Opera House by Julie Lincoln and Christopher Saunders.
Stars Yasmine Naghdi (Juliet), Matthew Ball (Romeo), Valentino Zucchetti (Mercutio), Gary Avis (Tybalt), Benjamin Ella (Benvolio), Nicol Edmonds (Paris), Christopher Saunders (Lord Capulet), Christina Arestis (Lady Capulet), Kristen McNally (Nurse), Lord Montague (Jonathan Howells), Lady Montague (Tara-Brigitte Bhavnani), Frair Laurence (Jonathan Howells), Escalus (Thomas Whitehead), Rosaline (Fumi Kaneko).
Also stars Beatriz Stix-Brunell, Mica Bradbury, and Romany Pajdak (Three Harlots), Leticia Dias, Isabella Gasparini, Meaghan Grace Hinkis, Chisato Katsura, Ana Rose O’Sullivan, and Gemma Pitchley-Gale (Juliet’s Friends), as well as Marcelino Sambé, Luca Acri, Téo Dubreuil, Paul Kay, and Tomas Mock (Mandolin Dance).
Pavel Sorokin conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House (Sergey Levitin Concert Master). Designs by Nicholas Georgiadis; lighting design by John B. Read; staging by Julie Lincoln and Christopher Saunders. Directed for TV by Ross MacGibbon. Released 2021, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A+
This is the same MacMillian Romeo and Juliet that the Royal Ballet published in 2009 and 2013 in Blu-ray. So now we have 3 Blu-rays of this with different casts, all recorded by Ross MacGibbon. The Royal Opera Ballet is the parent company of Opus Arte, and they have chosen to publish repeat videos for several of their warhorse shows. I think they are trying to reward their developing stars with beautiful recordings that they can always treasure.
The danger with the warhorse is that you may ride it, and ride it, until one days it dies. But with this R&J, the Royal Ballet strives to strengthen the horse rather than exhaust it. So this third version of this classic ballet is the best ever from the Royal Ballet.
There’s always action on the streets of old Verona:
At the center of the action we usually find the Head Harlot played by Beatriz Stix-Brunell:
The three Harlots are MacMillan’s invention (not in Shakespeare):
The Head Harlot’s favorite guy on the street is Romeo, son of Lord Montague (Matthew Ball) The Montagues mix easy and are loved by the people:
Next below left is Romeo again. Below right is Benvolio (Benjamin Ella), a Montague and Romeo’s best friend. Center is Mercutio (Valentino Zucchetti), the sharpest wit and best sword fighter in town. He is not a Montague, but a relative of Prince Escalus, the ruler of Verona:
These three young men are a threat to the patrician Capulet clan. The Capulets despise the Montagues as upstarts. But Lord Capulet has no son. The Capulet knights are led by Tybalt, a nephew of Lady Capulet. A huge brawl with swords and daggers breaks out in the city plaza and many die before Escalus (Thomas Whitehead) arrives to restore order. Below on the left Romeo is joined by Lord and Lady Montague. On the right we see Lord and Lady Capulet. Tybalt (Gary Avis) wears a black vest. Escalus disarms all the knights and makes the leader of the clans promise to play nice:
But the truce will not likely last long. The Capulets urgently need allies, and this best can happen if their daughter Juliet marries into a strong family. Below we see Juliet (Yasmine Naghdi), her nurse (Krasten McNally), and Lord Capulet (Christopher Saunders):
A marriage of Juliet to Paris will bolster the fortunes of the Capulets. Lord Capulet and Lady Capulet introduce Paris to Juliet, who would rather go back to playing with her doll:
In this third version of R&J published by the Royal Opera Ballet, the most noticeable improvement over the earlier recordings is the cogent personal directing and great acting skill achieved by all the dancers. Every move and expression by the huge cast of dancers has been honed to perfection. And the dancing is also better than ever! Over and over again the audience breaks into applause for scene after scene—probably the most impressive display of ovation in any HDVD we have to date.
Next below is an example of a beautiful, clean trio and also the famous Dance of the Capulet Knights:
Even the Royal Opera House Orchestra sounds better than ever. Below Juliet and Paris are introduced to society over the most beautiful music Prokofiev ever wrote:
But Romeo has crashed the party. Juliet, carefully sheltered by her clan from the rude streets, knows who Romeo is, but she has never seen him before. So here we see our bride-to-be falling in love at first sight with the most wrong man conceivable:
And it love at first sight for Romeo also! Neither can restrain themselves and they proceed to create a huge scandal at the party:
I’m skipping the balcony scene because you can see it live in the official trailer below. In a mad rush, R &J wed in secret. Friar Lawrence hopes this will bring peace to Verona. It will, but not the way he expects:
Now Romeo is secretly married to Tybalt’s closest cousin. When Tybalt wants to tangle with Romeo, Romeo mysteriously declines to fight. Mercutio rushes in to defend Romeo’s honor by fighting Tybalt. In the confusion, Tybalt runs Mercutio through with his sword. Even Tybalt is astonished and terrified by what he has done: killed a relative of the Prince! Next below the the death of Mercutio:
Enraged, Romeo kills Tybalt, his secret wife’s closest cousin. Below, the grief of Lady Capulet:
Romeo is exiled by the Prince on pain of death. But he sneaks back into his wife’s bedroom for one night:
Friar Lawrence cooks up a complicated plan using a sleeping potion to smuggle Juliet out of Verona with Romeo:
But you know what happens to the best-laid plans:
So here you have it all. Great music, great dancing, and also acting on a level competitive with stars of the stage and screen. I don’t have time right now to “run the numbers” on Ross MacGibbon’s whole video file. But I used the splendid trailer from the ROB below as a sample. It has about 17 clips in 294 seconds for a pace of 17 seconds per clip. This is the best pace I’ve seen from Ross. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about watching the third version of this show from the Royal Ballet, but once it got rolling, I found it thrilling. So now this version gets the A+, and I’ll downgrade the prior versions a bit.
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