BALLET REVIEW: ROMEO AND JULIET


Pictured: Guillaume Côté, Elena Lobsanova

JOHN COULBOURN, Special to TorSun
15 MARCH 2012
R: 5/5

TORONTO -  For many, it was love at first sight back in November, 2011, when the National Ballet of Canada premièred a brand new production of ROMEO AND JULIET, choreographed for a company determined to celebrate its 60th anniversary in high balletic style, by Alexei Ratmansky, a Russian-born dance maker and something in the way of an international sensation.

Time passes however, and for those who might have started to wonder whether that initial infatuation would prove to be fleeting or whether it would deepen into something more enduring, a second look was in order — a second look that came when NBOC artistic director Karen Kain brought Ratmansky's R&J back to the the stage of the Four Seasons Centre, where it opened Tuesday. And Toronto, it seems, fell in love with it all over again.

In fact, flushed as it is with the success of an Ottawa engagement earlier this year, and on the cusp of an engagement in London, England, Ratmansky's effervescent, youthful and highly energetic take on Shakespeare's most enduring romantic tragedy is perhaps even more winning than it was the first time around, carried aloft as much by its growing youthful swagger as by the glorious music of Sergei Prokofiev, served up with great style by the NBOC Orchestra, under Ormsby Wilkins, returning briefly to the company's fold.

Mind you, for those more accustomed to the stately elegance of the company's original R&J, a long-time dance staple choreographed by John Cranko, there is probably still something a little shocking about designer Richard Hudson's  colourfully sun-drenched take on an early Renaissance Verona, full of youthful exuberance. But as Guillaume Côté's Romeo — a joyous evocation of a lad simply in love with love — falls prey to to the sweetly innocent charms with which Elena Lobsanova imbues her Juliet — those reservations must surely melt like so much fine beeswax in the heat of the passion that rages across the stage like a bonfire. 

And while their ill-fated love story represents the major focus of the tale, Ratmansky provides plenty of opportunity for the supporting cast to show us there is more than one story to be freed from Shakespeare's tale by a choreographer with the vision and the drive to mine them. And principal amongst those wonderful side trips would be Piotr Stanczyk's scene-stealing take on the tempestuous Mercutio, who, paired with an almost equally charming Benvolio, danced by Robert Stephen, embodies the spirit of youthful exuberance and joy that, in its passing, turns this tale into tragedy.

There's superb work too, from Jiří Jelinek, as a dark and simmering Tybalt who seems to invest every scene he's in with danger, and from Lorna Geddes, who as Juliet's long-suffering nurse, manages to fill every fluttering movement with an endearing mix of sympathy and affection. In putting them all together, Ratmansky has taken the essence of youth — that rush toward a tomorrow surely filled with adventure — and distilled it into a potent dance, filled with joy and tragedy in equal measure.