Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet / Ferri, Eagling, Jefferies, Drew, Hosking, Macmillan, Lawrence, Royal Ballet
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Actor: Alessandra Ferri, Kenneth Macmillan, Wayne EaglingBrand: Kultur
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 140 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-05-31
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Kultur Video
DVD Reviews of Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet / Ferri, Eagling, Jefferies, Drew, Hosking, Macmillan, Lawrence, Royal Ballet
DVD Review: Really worth 3 stars but one added for Ferri
Summary: 4 Stars
This DVD was recorded relatively early in Ferri's career. Superb technique solidly grounds youth and passion. Here she is truly a dream Juliet (I haven't seen her later version from La Scala with Angel Corella.... but that's over a decade after this). She does not have to create youth: unlike Ulanova and Fonteyn she has it. It propels her dancing whether in joy or tragedy.
Wayne Eagling, the fine, elegant Canadian dancer whom I have admired elsewhere, makes a rather self-effacing, earth-bound, withdrawn Romeo, coming accross, contrary to the play, much older than Juliet (indeed Eagling is 13 years older than Ferri); surprising how Fonteyn and Ulanova through their artistry, narrowed the age-gap with their partners, but perhaps it doesn't work as well from male to female. As I watched this revival, I could not help but feel that the fine Benvolio, Mark Freeman, or the Mercutio, Stephen Jeffries, would have been better at Romeo than Eagling, who would probably have made an effective Mercutio. These three male parts at the Royal have always been cast from strength. When I first saw the piece, in Chicago way back in 1965 when the Royal first brought it over, Nureyev was the Romeo, with David Blair as Mercutio and Anthony Dowell as Benvolio (Fonteyn was the Juliet). Ironically, Ferri-Corella in the La Scala performance reverts to older-Juliet, younger-Romeo pairing.
I never saw the dancers on whom and for whom Macmillan created the Ballet: Lynn Seymour and the late Christopher Gable. By all accounts he was inspired by their chemistry. They were evenly paired. They embodied the youth, the passion of the love story, and Macmillan choreographed their roles from their strengths as dancers and their commanding histrionic powers. Much to everybody's chagrin, Covent Garden intervened and forced Nureyev and Fonteyn on Macmillan for the premiere. Seymour and Gable became the second cast and the third, Sibley and Dowell. Riches like that do not exist anymore. One could go to first cast for star-power, to the second for dramatic truth, poetry and originality, to the third for youthful love, and to all of them for magnificent dancing. Unfortunately, the CG political shenanigans that provoked such last minute changes eventually led to the departure of Macmillan, Seymour and Gable (who went on to make movies with Ken Russell). In later years I saw Sibley and Dowell, a truly romantic pair, as well as Nureyev now tenderly pairing the magnificent if not sufficiently acknowledged, Merle Park. When ABT bought the production, Makarova and Mackenzie were quite effective in it. All of this points to a rather distinguished performance history for this ballet that this DVD's overall ensemble does not live up to.
Part of the problem is that I don't think the Macmillan choreography was really outstanding in the first place and has not aged well, notwithstanding wonderful inspired sequences such as the balcony scene. There are stretches, particularly in the market-place, when one can close eyes, listen to Prokofiev's masterful score, and not miss much of anything. Productions and choreographies tend to become "classic" when ballet companies don't want to spend money on something else.
With the Royal and ABT having invested so much on this product, we never get to see the alternatives, while their marketeers try to make us believe there is not much else out there. Well, frankly, there are quite worthy ones out there: Cranko did an outstanding one, Lavrovsky and Grigorivich (sp) did very different but, in their own terms, splendid ones in the old USSR. Ashton did one for the Royal Danish Ballet (of which I have seen some highly lyrical excerpts). And, of course, Nureyev did a superb production for the Paris Opera Ballet, which, if forced to pick, would be my favourite (it is a reworking of a version he first staged for the London Festival Ballet). The Paris R&J is a DVD worth getting. The choreography fits the tumultous, passionately poetic nature of the play. Characters such as Paris become flesh and blood, as opposed to the store-mannequin Macmillan gives us. There is much more dancing, interesting dancing, than in Macmillan, with greater technical demands on all protagonists and corps. All the virtuosity is for one purpose only: to serve the needs of the drama. It has been said by others that the Nureyev version is the most Shakesperean of all. As true as that may be, it is also the most balletic: the dances are many, are beautiful, and exhilarate. I am told by experienced sources who have danced Macmillan and Cranko as well as Nureyev that Nureyev's is the hardest: it makes the most technical and emotional demands of any version around. The production, on DVD from the Palais Garnier, is sumptuous, as all those Paris Opera Ballet productions tend to be (get their versions of "Paquita", "La Bayadere", and "Don Quixote"). Sets and costumes of the Paris Romeo make all other productions look dowdy.
So where does that leave us? The Ferri/Eagling version is worthy for the joy of "early Ferri" but be weary that other than Stephen Jeffries and Mark Freeman, she is dancing in a vaccuum. Even the corps is dull. The Ulanova film of the Lavrovsky choreography (a film, not a stage performance) is definitely worth getting not only for her artistry and the radically different, emotive approach, but also for proximity to the source, after all she was the first Juliet (in 1940, when she was 30; the film was made I guess about a decade later). I know of no films of Cranko, or Ashton (the Cranko was done often enough by the Stuttgart in New York, but that was years ago). I think no version captures more accurately and thrillingly the ardour and tragedy of Romeo and Juliet than Nureyev's at the Paris Opera. Manuel Legris is a Romeo for the ages. And so is the Juliet of Monique Loudiers.
In any event, thank you Prokofiev.
More Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet / Ferri, Eagling, Jefferies, Drew, Hosking, Macmillan, Lawrence, Royal Ballet reviews:
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Description of Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet / Ferri, Eagling, Jefferies, Drew, Hosking, Macmillan, Lawrence, Royal Ballet
Studio: Kultur Release Date: 05/31/2005Classical Music CDs
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