DANCE REVIEW: ROMEO AND JULIET
17 NOV/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
R: 4.5/5

Pictured: Elena Lobsanova, Guillaume Côté

TORONTO - At first blush, Romeo seems like one dude — a young man who, just prior to his ill-fated meeting with Juliet, professes undying love for another. But that’s the way with it is with passion — and by those lights, it’s easy to equate the reactions of a young man who’s simply in love with love to the reactions of a ballet audience that’s simply in love with dance.

An audience, say, like the one that gathered in the Four Seasons Centre Wednesday for the world première of choreographer Alexei Ratmansky’s brand new production of ROMEO AND JULIET. The work was commissioned by the National Ballet of Canada to commemorate its 60th anniversary and to replace an admittedly threadbare but beloved version choreographed by John Cranko — an audience favourite since it was acquired in 1964.

But while the opening night audience no doubt treasured the enduring beauty of the Cranko version of Shakespeare’s tragedy, they lost no time in embracing this new version. And they embraced it, one suspects, because they fell in love with Ratmansky’s demanding choreography, even while they were swept up by the music of Sergei Prokofiev and seduced by the sun-drenched colour palette employed by designer Richard Hudson to bring life to Renaissance Verona, more Fra Angelico it seems than Tintoretto.

Still, it’s hard to embrace even the showiest choreography unless it is superbly danced — and, once again, that’s the trump card for artistic director Karen Kain and her company.

As Romeo, Guillaume Côté is once again a superb romantic lead, bringing youthful elegance, athleticism and great lashings of charm to the role. He is perfectly paired with the exquisite Elena Lobsanova whose youthful, even ethereal, grace turns their courtship scenes — the party scene where they meet and the balcony scene where they declare their love — into a potent distillation of youthful passions. Only in the bedroom scene does Lobsanova fall short, seemingly more in love with dance than the man with whom she just spent the night.

Of course, no story ballet is complete without fine work from the supporting cast — and that is particularly true in this work, for Ratmansky spreads the spotlight around, showcasing not just the breadth of this company’s talent but its depth. Thus, dancers like Jiří Jelinek and Patrick Lavoie are afforded an opportunity to dig deeper into characters like Tybalt and Paris respectively, bringing life and dimension to roles too long danced in only two dimensions. And while, in Ratmansky’s vision (as opposed to Shakespeare’s), Mercutio seems more prankster than swaggering cynic, Piotr Stanczyk proves to be such a crowd-pleaser, backed by Robert Stephen’s game Benvolio, that it’s hard to fault the vision.

There’s fine work too from corps members and character artists alike. That includes Lorna Geddes’ Nurse, Etienne Lavigne’s Lord Capulet, Peter Ottman’s Friar Lawrence and Rex Harrington’s Duke of Verona — all dancers that have formed the backbone on which this glorious company is built.

There are, of course, fleeting moments when the action lags and one realizes that for all its dramatic richness, this is neither Shakespeare’s R&J, nor Cranko’s. But, aside from a bit of foreshadowing that robs Juliet’s supposed death scene of much of its sting, they are all likely to disappear as the company continues to explore this dense new vision. Even while an audience as in love with dance as Romeo is with love finds the moments and the artists that will make it something to treasure over the next 60 years.