Romeo and Juliet ballet. Music by Prokofiev. Directed and choreographed in 2019 by Christian Spuck at the Opernhaus Zürich. Stars Lucas Valente (Capulet), Eva Dewaele (Lady Capulet), Katja Wünsche (Juliett), Tigran Mkrtchyan (Tybalt), Elena Vostrotina (Juliet’s Nurse), Daniel Otevrel (Lord Montague), Mélannie Borel (Lady Montague), William Moore (Romeo), Daniel Mulligan (Mercutio), Christopher Parker ( Benvolio), Jan Casier (Paris), Filipe Portugal (Father Laurence) and other dancers from Ballett Zürich and the Junior Ballett. Michail Jurowski conducts the Philharmonia Zürich. Set design by Christian Schmidt; costume design by Emma Ryott; lighting design by Reinhard Traub; dramaturgy by Michael Küster. Directed for TV by Michael Beyer; produced by Paul Smaczny. Released 2020, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: B-
For reasons I’ll mention later, I find this to be an uneven and weak production. But it appears TV Director Michael Beyer went out and bought new cameras for this shoot. The PQ is maybe better than any other of hundreds of fine-arts Blu-ray titles I’ve watched in recent years. So in this review, I’ll focus on beautiful video images. Even the fleeting views of the orchestra are beautiful. For example, consider the image below. Note the bright sheet music, the fine rendition of the instruments, and the nice skin tones of the musicians. On my TV display I’m also able to see variations in the black clothing of the players. It looks in my home theater almost like 4K with HDR, but it’s just regular 2K:
There is a blue or gray cast generally to the dance images throughout the show. But I think that comes from design decisions (especially lighting) made by the artistic team and not from the TV director. Below on the left are family portraits of the Montague clan. On the right are the Capulets (except for Juliet). In the top portraits, they are behaving themselves. In the bottom portraits they show their feeling for each other. I get it, but is this considered acting?
Spuck has a relatively small and young company. He has juniors in the ballet school to help out, but he doesn’t have a stable of character dancers (as the big houses do). Juliet, who is 13 and just eligible for marriage, would be the youngest person on the stage in Shakespeare’s play. But Spuck’s strongest female dancer available for this recording was Katja Wünsche, who appears to be the oldest person to be seen on these boards. (Spuck also used the younger Giulia Tonelli as Juliet in a different cast—maybe Katja was the second choice.) Katja was probably OK in the live show where the audience is not too close to the action and is loaded with Katja fans. But it is a problem in HD TV. For example, next below we meet Juliet (Katja Wünsch) on the right in the red dress being protected by her nurse (Elena Vostrotina) on the left with the red hair. Juliet is obviously 13 years or more older than her nurse!
The age problem pops up often. Below on the left is Count Paris (Jan Casier) , the proposed husband for Juliet, next to Lord Capulet, Julia’s father (Lucas Valente ). Capulet is a really young-looking father-in-law:
Next below is the Dance of the Capulet Knights. The costumes in this production are quite nice, but it’s just about impossible to distinguish between the members of the two enemy clans. This is almost a deal killer by itself—you have to watch this several times just to get clear in your mind what characters all these beautiful young people are playing. The set is exceedingly plain. There are almost no props except for the extravagant chandelier, which seems out-of-place considering the rest of the designs. But Beyer does get some neat images of the lighting fixture (not shown here):
Below a detail from the Dance of the Knights. Even with the low lighting, Beyer gets great resolution and depth-of-field of focus throughout his video at all ranges. And I should now mention that I don’t remember, even with tons of frantic dancing going on, any motion blur in the video file! This really is admirable, immaculate video photography:
There is a lot of motion taking place in the image below with Mercutio (Daniel Mulligan) sliding under the skirt of one of the Capulet ladies. But the image is so clean!
Spuck presents Paris as a nitwit. This is a sad departure from Shakespeare since Paris is in no way a foil to Romeo. Paris is a distinguished young man related to the Duke’s family. Capulet has no son. The leader of his knights is Tybalt, the nephew of Capulet’s wife. One of these days, Tybalt will have his own family to worry about. The future safety of the Capulet clan depends on Juliet’s marriage to a strong man like Paris:
Next below, a dramatic shot of hot-head Tybalt (Tigran Mkrtchyan) being restrained by his uncle Capulet:
Tybalt is pointing his weapon at Romeo (William Moore) who has been caught by Tybalt crashing Juliet’s engagement party. Note the beautiful fine detail in Romeo’s chainmail armor; this type of texture usually produces terrible artifacts in video recordings :
You know, I’m sure, that Romeo and Juliet fall in love at Juliet’s big party. A marriage of Juliet and Paris would only serve to continue the war between the Capulets and the Montagues. The thing that makes the Shakespeare play the most famous love story is the courage that both Romeo and Juliet show in finding a love that might make things better for their families. And (in the play) Friar Lawrence marries them for exactly that reason. Well, they succeed, although they could not foresee how high the cost would be. Below, the marriage is officiated by Lawrence (Filipe Portugal):
Next below see the death of Mercutio, run through by Tybalt. As his guts fill with blood and his life fades, his face is half in shadow. (Did Spuck and Beyer plan for this image?) Mercutio is not a Montague. He's related to the Duke and was was just a friend of Romeo. Now he regrets the folly of his actions. This is where (in the play) he issues his famous curse: “A pox [plague] on both your houses.”
Now Tybalt, Juliet’s most beloved cousin, is dead, killed by her husband, Romeo:
Romeo has become a hunted man. But no one would expect to find him in Juliet’s bedroom, where he is safe at least for his wedding night. The props department couldn’t find a bed anywhere in the storeroom, so this beat-up set of tables will have to do. (Sure reminds me of the table in Spuck’s video 3 years prior of Verdi’s Messa da Requeim):
Now below Juliet and her father wait for Paris to arrives and try again to win her over. Who looks the older?
Juliet has taken the sleeping potion provided by Friar Lawrence. The family will think she has died:
Note below how clearly you can see the fine detail of the veil that covers Juliet in her burial chamber. Now Beyer arranges for the distant candles to be out-of-focus for a nice effect:
The horrible tables again!
Poor Katja Wünsche looks totally exhausted:
Spuck had the resources to do Romeo and Juliet for the local audience, but his production is not competitive in the video market with recordings from houses such as the Royal Ballet and La Scala. There is a lot of choreography in this, but I kept seeing the same steps and motions with the arms and hands. SQ is fine. PQ is superb, but I sampled video pace enough to tell me that it’s too fast. Still, out of respect for his print, I’ll not jump on too hard on Beyer this time for DVDitis.
For weakness in the production and dancing, I give this a C. I bump this up to a B for the PQ, but then I go to B- for the excessive pace. If Spuck’s style here appeals to you, you will probably be more than pleased with Beyer’s PQ. If Beyer had slowed down the pace, he could have produced some of the best dance video ever. Too bad for the near miss. But this is maybe the best work from Beyer to date, so there’s always hope for the next time.
Here’s an official trailer. I think this is not Beyer’s work and is not as nice as the Blu-ray disc, but it is the same production with some differences in the cast:
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