February 1965. Winston Churchill’s state funeral is over, the miniskirt is barely a twinkle in Mary Quant’s eye and at Covent Garden the curtain goes up on Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. Since then, the three-act masterpiece has become a cornerstone of the Royal Ballet’s repertoire and the company is marking its diamond jubilee with a run of 29 performances, which opened at the Royal Opera House with Koen Kessels and the orchestra powering nobly through Prokofiev’s score.
There was once a distinguished critic (not a MacMillan fan) who would routinely sleep through the ensembles but jerk awake for the duets. The latest revival, alertly staged by Laura Morera, has eliminated the usual longueurs and there is plenty of tasty character playing. Ryoichi Hirano was a devilishly charismatic Tybalt, working marketplace and ballroom with total assurance, bringing this often cardboard villain to life. As Paris, both Nicol Edmonds and Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød took care to show how Juliet’s handsome fiancé is first puzzled, then mortified, then embittered by her sudden aversion to him. Giacomo Rovero was a polished and sparky Benvolio. Joseph Sissens was a cheeky, sure-footed Mercutio on opening night, and Benjamin Ella, dancing on Friday evening, brought a surprising matador flash to the character’s fatal duel with Tybalt.
Most of this season’s lovers have danced their roles many times but Royal Ballet director Kevin O’Hare has spiced up the castings with thrilling new combinations. Opening night played safe with the perfectly matched Yasmine Naghdi and Matthew Ball. Their 10-year partnership in this production guaranteed frictionless pas de deux. Ball made light of the pairwork and Naghdi was a persuasive Juliet, from the nervous nibble of her pas de bourrée in the opening scene to her silent scream of horror beside the tomb.
The chemistry at play when crossmatching two dancers can result in a silky emulsion — or an explosion. Friday’s casts were both a definite fire risk. The matinee was led by Fumi Kaneko and Vadim Muntagirov. Kaneko delineated every stage in Juliet’s transition from shy, frolicsome child to tragic heroine. Every facet of her dancing is amplified by the first sight of Romeo: leaping higher, turning faster. There is a thrilling hormone rush to her delivery, perfectly matched by her Romeo. Muntagirov, returning from injury, made every solo a love poem, every touch a caress.
Three hours and a few costume changes later and we were back in Verona where Marianela Nuñez’s happy ever after was about to be derailed by William Bracewell. The 33-year-old Welshman combines a silky classical technique with almost goofy verismo, playing Shakespeare’s hero with the heedless impetuosity of a lovestruck teenager. He didn’t take any risks with MacMillan’s complex partnering but, like Muntagirov, he made every embrace appear raw and spontaneous, galvanising his ballerina.
Nuñez never allows her facility to gloss over the ugliness that MacMillan builds into the narrative: the miserable urgency of the bedroom farewell, her disgust at another man’s touch, the final agonising crawl back to her dead lover’s side. It always turns out badly, but I never wanted it to end.
★★★★★
To May 26. Live international cinema relay on March 20, rbo.org.uk