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Phil Hopkins
Group Travel Editor & Theatre Correspondent
@philhopkinsuk
2:43 PM 12th October 2016
arts

Romeo And Juliet

 
Martha Leebolt and Giuliano Contadini - photo Andy Ross
Martha Leebolt and Giuliano Contadini - photo Andy Ross
In 1938 Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev instigated a second revolution that would change the face of the world for ever.

Only this unrest would be of a cultural nature with not so much as a Bolshevik in sight.

Nowadays we have the curious spectacle in Romeo and Juliet of a story set in Italian Verona, written by an Englishman and musically immortalised by a Russian. In the words of Northern Ballet's Orchestrator and Arranger: "Prokofiev's score is indelibly associated with Shakespeare's play and it would be a brave person indeed who today attempted a new ballet version of Romeo and Juliet with different music."

And I couldn't have agreed more as I waited for that amazing part of the score when the warring Capulets and Montagues first come head to head at the great house ball; it has been used so many times and in so many situations since it was penned in the 1930's including, if my memory serves me right, as the appropriate theme music to World at War.

And, for all Jean-Christophe Maillot's version of Romeo and Juliet may have been staged many times, it was my first opportunity to witness a production where colours were stark and contrasting, on a stage devoid of traditional scenery and requiring of greater audience imagination.

So it is with some compliment that I applaud the freshness of Northern Ballet's production which stood in complete contrast to the Moscow City Ballet's version I first witnessed in early 2014. Leading from the front, again, was Martha Leebolt in the title role of Juliet, a lady who repeatedly demonstrates her versatility. In March 2014 it was the strength of Cleopatra, now it was the vulnerability of Shakespeare's most famous of female characters.





Northern Ballet is very much a 'company' and, after a while, you do feel that you are popping out to see your mates, albeit on stage! This time it was an opportunity to see Javier Torres impress the audience as the vain and aggressive Tybalt, Juliet's cousin and the first to fall to Romeo's sword.

Matthew Koon and Sean Bates as Mercutio and Benvolio were suitably carefree and antagonising as Romeo's buddies, whilst the man himself - Giuliano Contadini - somehow maintained a likeable quality; a pacifist who is forced to avenge his friend's death because honour, rather than motivation, required him to do so.

And I have to say that I loved Maillot's take on Shakespeare's classic because it was uncluttered by traditional scenery; you could only focus on the dance.

The Moscow City Ballet's version was traditional in every sense of the word; enjoyable but nothing unexpected. With Northern Ballet there was the white and black costumes - the good and bad if you like - as well as the white, clinical flats, huge expanses of moving scenery, designed by Ernest Pignon-Ernest (so good they named him twice!) and cleverly used to move the action from one geographical place to another without so much as a Verona veranda in sight!

Mlindi Kulashe as Friar Laurence, the Franciscan cleric and friend to Romeo and Juliet who hatches a plan that will unwittingly lead to the deaths of both protagonists, used the white expanse wonderfully as he powerfully and symbolically drove the plot from beginning to end; almost an adjective rather than a character in the same way that the MC might have been in Cabaret. Commentators on a 'situation'.

Prokofiev, Shakespeare and now Jean-Christophe Maillot's have worked their individual magic to produce something special. Forget Trump and Hilary, it's these three that should be heading off to the United Nations to work their magic. I don't think Sergei would veto The Bard or Maillot, they've done too much to enhance his reputation!

Bradford Alhambra until Saturday October 15th