The Mariinsky Ballet's Romeo and Juliet at Covent Garden, review

By Sarah Crompton
Published: 5:53PM BST 04 Aug 2009



The Mariinsky Ballet has chosen to open its much-anticipated summer season in London by unveiling its newest bendy ballerina – and a male shooting star.

Alina Somova, 23, and Vladimir Shklyarov, 24, are starring in Leonid Lavrovsky’s version of Romeo and Juliet, radical when it was first staged with a newly commissioned Prokofiev score in 1940, but now not so much preserved in aspic as pickled in it.

Seen today, the production has many merits: a clear narrative line, elegant courtly dances, lyrical duets, sets of faded grandeur by Pyotr Williams that interpret Renaissance Italy with a sharp eye. But time has also preserved and exaggerated its weaknesses. It is full of hammy gestures, plaster food, lots of business with urchins and cheerily dressed peasants, and a vision of Verona that owes more to Ruritania than Shakespeare.

What’s needed to bring it to life is absolute belief and commitment on the part of the lovers at its heart, a grand gesture of truth. And that is just what Shklyarov provides. He is heavenly, one of those dancers who seems to regard the stage as a place he instinctively belongs.

He jumps with natural, unforced elevation, partners with such care that Somova’s feet barely brush the ground as he lowers her from soaring lifts, and acts with a sincerity that blows away all the corny posturing that surrounds him.

His smile when he first encounters his Juliet is like an embrace; his pleasure as he strews lilies at her feet at their wedding touchingly tender; his despair when he realises that he will have to take up his sword and fight Tybalt unbearable. His Romeo is a real man in an unreal world.

Somova, by contrast, in her debut as Juliet, is never anything more than a dancer making steps. She has been criticised in Russia for the way her hyper-extended legs distort the traditional Mariinsky line. But, on the basis of this performance, it is not the way she dances that is the problem – she looks very pretty, and the way movement flows through her long limbs is glorious.

But she seems to be dancing with herself a lot of the time, so when she flings her arms around Romeo’s neck, you don’t see a woman in love but a girl worried about whether her hands are in the right position. Her sobs are shudderingly theatrical.

Elsewhere, there is much to enjoy. Ilya Kuznetsov is a ferocious, swaggering Tybalt, Alexander Sergeyev an overly- precise but vivid Mercutio, and Yana Selina full of grave grace as Juliet’s companion. The orchestra under Boris Gruzin made the score sound thrillingly rich and fresh.

But it was Shklyarov’s night. In his outstanding performance, he gave a reminder of why such excitement always surrounds the Mariinsky whenever it visits; the productions may be old hat, but again and again the company produces dancers who dance like dreams and understand the art of classical ballet in their bones.

Romeo and Juliet, Royal Opera House, London

By Clement Crisp.
August 4 2009 22:11

Watching the Mariinsky Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet requires from an audience a willingness to time-travel. Here is the first Russian staging of Prokofiev’s score, dating from January 1940. It bears the imprint of its times in its dramatic manner (which is panoramic but oddly antiseptic in dealing with identity, let alone youthful passion) and in its design by Pyotr Williams, which is fussy, unlikely. Lavrovsky’s choreography offers the conventions of Soviet dance-drama of its era, but to eyes accustomed to the emotional tensions of MacMillan’s production, from a quarter-century later and a very different society, the action is sterilised in its means.

All of which must serve as prelude to delight at seeing the Mariinsky Ballet back at Covent Garden, and a mitigation of pleasure as this Romeo opened the season. The production is a fact of Mariinsky identity. We respect it as such, but on Monday night it proved a burden on my admiration for the troupe.

Be it said that the Mariinsky orchestra’s performance of the score under Boris Gruzin was vivid, illuminating. Be it then said that the costuming is a vexation to the spirit: the scenery’s panoramic views of Verona and its interiors are still credible, but caprices of skirt, of hose and jerkin and assorted hattery which might have suited (and, I recall, once did) Monty Python’s chaps, are no longer acceptable.

The evening’s Romeo, Vladimir Shklyarov, is ardent, soaring, academically pure, stylish. He is, as I noted last year, a blue-blood, and he shows us a vividly passionate youth. His Juliet, Alina Somova, seemed altogether too contemporary in style, in drama, in dance. I was fortunate to have seen Galina Ulanova, who created this role in 1940, and her luminous reading with its ravishing outlines (her run to Friar Laurence was a wave-surge of emotion) was delicate, piercing in its unvarying truth. Somova is ultra-modern in her long-limbed physique, the drama seeming done by rote, never convincing me of the dance’s values, of Juliet’s identity. Company performances in the manner now traditional to the staging were sound but, alas, the piece itself looks rickety. ★★★★☆

Romeo and Juliet. Royal Opera House, London.

Judith Mackrell

It's hard for British audiences to make the imaginative leap back to a time when the Russian take on Romeo and Juliet looked like hot-blooded ballet drama. The Lavrovsky setting of Prokofiev's score, which returns to London to open the Mariinsky season, predates the MacMillan version by just 25 years. Yet with its symmetrically orchestrated choruses, hammed-up mime and stiff vocabulary of steps, Lavrovsky's 1940 account seems much older.

In some respects it gives us Shakespeare on a more expansive scale. There is an exhilarating breadth to the staging. From the opening scene where Romeo watches the sun rise over his beloved Verona, to the final starlit procession down to Juliet's tomb, the action appears much more rooted in a geographical location. The playing of Mariinsky orchestra also dramatises the full force of Prokofiev's music, and some of the choreographic set pieces rise to a spectacular degree of melodrama – especially the death of Tybalt, which has Lady Capulet seated astride the body as it is carried off stage, her extravagant keening less a dance of grief than war as she goads her kinsman back into battle.

But the stridency of the ballet's scale results in a loss of emotional and psychological detail, and there are certain roles that tip into self-parody. Even in the choreography for the principal couple there is little nuance, little development. Alina Somova is not a subtle dancer; her preternaturally long limbs make amazing shapes but rarely register internal shifts of tension, rhythm and music. Yet her genuine efforts to act the role of Juliet are hampered by the narrow range of the choreography – the same steps irrespective of whether she's dancing with narcissistic Paris or with Romeo.

It is Romeo, however, who comes out best. Lavrovsky is clearly more engaged with his story, and aside from the curiously ineffective tantrum, in which Romeo displays his frustration at leaving Juliet by kicking and punching the stage, his choreography is the most alive. Vladimir Shklyarov is exceptional in the role. Unlike many of his colleagues, he cuts easily through the ballet's cobwebs and find a natural manner. In the flying, giddy impetus he brings to the balcony scene and the yearning of the bedroom duets, he frequently appears to be performing in a different ballet.

August 5, 2009
Romeo and Juliet at Covent Garden

Debra Craine

The first thing you have to accept about the Mariinsky Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet is that it is a period piece. Given its premiere in 1940 in St Petersburg, it was in its day a landmark for the Kirov (as the Mariinsky used to be called). Seeing it now, in the wake of the countless Romeo productions that succeeded it, is to be aware of its longueurs and dramatic artifice. A ballet in three acts and 13 scenes, it makes for a hefty and bloated evening.

Much of the blame lies with Lavrovsky’s choreography, which never quite achieves the kind of emotional lift-off we are used to in more familiar versions. His formulaic response to the drama (for which we can also blame Radlov’s staging) allows for too many display dances that merely serve to cool the passion. Act III, in particular, is a hard slog, ponderous in parts and filled with way too much musical padding.

Throughout, the crowd scenes are excitable without being entirely clear in their rival allegiances, while some named characters take a broadly pantomimic approach to acting. Still, the consistency of the fabled Mariinsky dancing style is to be admired, especially the supple backs and the accentuated decoration of the arms. Visuals are strong too. Pyotr Williams’s sets are painterly and handsome, adorned with tapestries, massive curtains and Renaissance vistas, while his costumes (aside from the odd lapse) are elegant.

The rising star Alina Somova was given the honour of opening the Mariinsky Ballet’s London season. She is one of those extreme movers who can twist her body into any shape. What she is not, however, is one of nature’s Juliets. On Monday she tried hard to overcome her dramatic shortcomings, yet couldn’t quite cut her dancing according to the emotional cloth. There was little nuance or colouring in the phrasing and musicality of her wild long limbs; she was physically animated without being especially engaging. Her Romeo was Vladimir Shklyarov (pictured with Somova), extremely boyish looking yet utterly appealing in dance and manner. His unbounded enthusiasm for Juliet (“come and get it, honey”, in the balcony scene) was infectious. It was Shklyarov who gave the evening its one whiff of true amour and brought urgent meaning to the lovers’ tragic death.

Elsewhere, Ilya Kuznetsov’s Tybalt, with his repertoire of distressed facial gestures, was faintly ludicrous, hardly the kind of evil catalyst to be taken seriously: think of Errol Flynn in full swashbuckling mode. It doesn’t help that he’s dressed like a jester. His opposite number, Mercutio, truly is a jester, a fact Alexander Sergeyev eagerly embraced. Disappointing to hear so many rough patches in the Mariinsky Orchestra’s handling of the mighty Prokofiev score, despite Boris Gruzin’s bold conducting. A case of exhaustion, perhaps, after the Mariinsky Opera’s Ring cycle marathon last week?

Romeo and Juliet

Tuesday 4 August 2009 at 12:55 by Sarah Wilkinson

It is hard for a British ballet audience raised on Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet to watch a choreographic alternative and not be prejudiced. Leonid Lavarovsky’s production holds its ground at times, yet it is filled with distracting additional characters and clumsy transitional scenes. His production forces the star-crossed lovers to look out at the world and acknowledge its hostility towards them, while MacMillan creates an insular world for his couple with an intimate and shared movement vocabulary.

In Vladimir Shklyarov, we have the perfect Romeo. Effervescent with boyish enthusiasm, he bounds across the stage as though every moment not filled by frivolous leaps or spins is wasted. He’s a risky performer to watch - his head thrown back unnervingly with every landing - yet he is one who understands his talent well and is able to indulge in it.

In contrast, Alina Somova, as Juliet, appears like a young Bambi struggling to find her centre of gravity. With such long, coltish limbs, Prokofiev’s playful score must be testing, yet her difficulties do make you wonder whether, at 23, she is being pushed too fast. Her lack of emotional awareness is striking - every convulsion of tears appears airbrushed on to a confused canvas. Only after her refusal of Paris does she seem to understand, and for five minutes, we are offered a glimmer of the lovely ballerina Somova could become. Left alone on stage, we finally see a flurry of sentiment registering in her body. These precious five minutes tease with potential. Let us hope this is not quashed by premature opportunity.

Mismatched lovers in Mariinsky Romeo and Juliet

By Sarah Frater



It can't be easy being the Mariinsky. The Russian visitors are in London with seasons of both opera and ballet, and both look set for unfavourable reviews. Last week the opera company pleased no one with its Ring cycle, and it’s hard to imagine many warming to the ballet’s opening production of Romeo And Juliet.

It’s actually a strange start to a Mariinsky ballet season. The company is best known and much loved in London for the 19th century classics, where its perfectly schooled, endlessly elegant dancers transform the old-style fairytales of Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty into dreamy physical poetry.

Romeo And Juliet, by contrast, was made in 1940 with few of the corps de ballet scenes so appealing to London ticket buyers. That wouldn’t matter if the dancers were committed to the drama, but most struggled to look interested in a bombastic production that includes orange wigs and Dastardly And Muttley villains.

The audience shared the general ennui as the massed Capulets and Montagues twiddled their moustaches and Tybalt (Ilya Kuznetsov) rolled his eyes. It’s impossible to know if they’ve freely chosen pier-end acting, or if they’ve been coached into cartoon baddies. Either way, they convey little of the rivalry and pride at the root of the tragedy.

The lovers themselves are mis-matched. Vladimir Shklyarov’s Romeo has a boyish appeal in an Indiana Jones kind of way. He throws himself around the stage, almost losing his footing, which hints at his character’s impetuous passion. He also has a good leap and appealing looks, with a fresh face and floppy hair unlike the exaggerated coiffure of some Russian dancers.

Alina Somova’s Juliet is a fledgling’s interpretation. The tall blonde is billed as the Mariinsky’s new star, but she shows what happens when you combine runaway technique with undeveloped artistry. With good coaching Somova could tame her freakishly long limbs and almost ghoulish flexibility.

The pretty 23-year-old could also learn to stop waving her arms and shaking her head. She, too, may have been encouraged to flash her split leaps and high kicks, but they’re a million miles from the passionate humanity of Shakespeare’s Juliet.

None of this is helped by the wobbly sets (as dancers charge about, the painted masonry wafts on the canvas clothes), while the orchestra’s raucous playing misses the sorrow of Prokofiev’s score.

Romeo and Juliet, Royal Opera House, London

Reviewed by Zoë Anderson

What possessed the Mariinsky Ballet company to open its London season with this soporific Romeo and Juliet? The celebrated St Petersburg company, still better known as the Kirov, has begun a blockbusting summer run at Covent Garden. The programming is heavy on bread and butter classics such as Swan Lake – but at least that plays to this company's strengths. Romeo exposes its creaking stagecraft and terrible acting. On the first night, only Vladimir Shklyarov's eager, lucid Romeo seemed to believe in the story he was telling.

Leonid Lavrovsky's venerable 1940 production has been a huge hit, but that was decades ago. In 1956, Western audiences were bowled over by their first sight of the Soviet-era Bolshoi, dancing this choreography with passionate gusto. More than 50 years on, the Mariinsky are simply going through the motions.

Lavrovsky's marketplace scenes are full of brawling and peasant dances. The Mariinsky corps skip politely through them. Swaying from side to side, they're conscientiously in unison, but nowhere near the beat. They even manage to be out of time during Tybalt's death scene – which, given the hammer blows of Prokofiev's score, takes some doing.

The orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre may still be exhausted from its recent Wagner marathon. Conducted by Boris Gruzin, their playing here was often thin, missing the music's sweep and grit.

It's a heavy, opera house production – 19th century picturesque Shakespeare, with extra dancing. Pyotr Williams's designs are a painstaking recreation of Italian renaissance scenes. His finest stage picture is Juliet's tomb, with the Capulet family mourning at twilight, beside cypress trees and torchlight.

Other scenes are let down by fading paint, loose backcloths and some iffy scene building. When the Capulets swagger in, semaphoring their huge and hammy reactions, the walls literally shake. Ilya Kuznetsov's Tybalt wins the prize for most over the top bad acting, but he has plenty of competition.

That leaves the young lovers. Alina Somova, the first night Juliet, is being heavily promoted as a new star. She's an elongated dancer, a tall blonde with a very flexible frame. She's toned down her more extreme positions for this role, but she can still look exaggerated. At the height of a jump, she'll yank her front leg higher – pulling the line of her legs past the 180 degrees of the splits. Finishing a phrase, she jerks her chin up. She's best in her simplest moments. The wedding scene, with its low, slow arabesques, is direct and touching. But by the end of the evening, I still didn't know who her Juliet was. When she reaches out to touch Romeo's face, there isn't a surge of emotion to drive the gesture. In the potion scene, she flings her arms out, glaring at the audience, but her inner turmoil is missing.

Shklyarov, another of this company's young hopes, is the most spontaneous person on stage. His dancing is ardent: excitement builds as he whips through a series of jumps, a young man caught up in his emotions. Similarly, he hurls himself into the confrontation with Tybalt – it's the one duel that actually looks like a fight. Shklyarov's acting is not particularly complex, but he always looks caught up in the world around him, ready to fling himself into love or battle. His dancing is clean and bold, with high jumps and strong, clear lines. It's a performance without mannerisms or ennui. The rest of the company can't match him.

Dated though the production is, there are moments when you can see why it was once powerful, but the company performance only offers a choice between dull or over the top.

Romeo and Juliet: Mariinsky, Covent Gardn

2:04pm Wednesday 5th August 2009
By David Bellan

There are many danced versions of Shakespeare’s great tragedy Romeo and Juliet, the most familiar to British audiences being Macmillan’s for the Royal Ballet, and Nureyev’s for what was then Festival Ballet. This Russian version is the work with which the Bolshoi, starring the great Ulanova, stunned London audiences in 1956, but it was actually made by Leonid Lavrovsky in 1940 for the Kirov (now returned to its original name, the Mariinski, after the great St Petersburg theatre in which it is based).

The Mariinsky is one of the world’s great companies, and it’s a thrill to see the stage crammed with dancers of such quality, with a superlative Juliet and an athletic and ardent Romeo. First and foremost, Evgenia Obraztsova really looks the part, young and pretty with a delightful personality. But that isn’t enough on it’s own; this woman can act – ranging easily through kittenish fun with her nurse in the opening scenes, to the tragic heroine who follows her lover to the grave. In-between she is a young woman overwhelmed by a sudden, unexpected love. Dancing in a state of euphoria with her lover, she gives a wonderful performance, lyrical, passionate, abandoned.

She is so much in command that it looks as though she is improvising the choreography according to her feelings, and in this she is well matched by Denis Matvienko’s noble Romeo. It’s clear that he is as overcome as she. On the one hand he is the romantic lover, but he’s no soppy poet – his rage at Tybalt after Mercutio’s death boils over in a surge of violence.

Notable also is a more-likeable-than-usual Tybalt, (Dmitri Pykhachev), in a costume on the verge of jester-hood; and a Paris (Sergei Popov) so vain that his page follows him around with a mirror! Alexander Sergeyev is a darting, mocking Mercutio, whose death is truly moving, while Elena Bazhenova’s agony at Tybalt’s death is palpable. Vladimir Ponomarev makes a dignified, slightly frightening Lord Capulet, exuding the authority of the head of a great family, who displays an unexpected sense of humour when tickled by Mercutio’s antics.

This production is 70 years old. It creaks a bit here and there, as does the scenery, with a wobbly statue and a cardboard banquet, but it shows us a company capable of great drama as well as great dance. There is a final Romeo tonight, but they’re here till the end of next week with a Homage to Balanchine programme, and more importantly, five nights of Swan Lake and three performances of The Sleeping Beauty – works in which they have excelled for over a century, and which enable them to show not only their greatness, but also their strength in depth.