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The score Sergei Prokofiev wrote for Romeo & Juliet
includes some of the most sublime and memorable music in the classical realm, perfectly
capturing the tensions of Shakespeare's brilliant story. Every achingly beautiful love
melody comes shaded with darkness--rapture is always edged with a hint of what is to come.
What could be more inevitable, then, than a fabulous Romeo &
Juliet ballet? The score practically dictates the choreography. Or does it? Helgi
Tomasson’s 1994 version of the story for the San Francisco Ballet (other
"R&J’s" have been produced since the late 1700’s) features the
requisite balcony and bedroom scene, the quick rise and fall of perfect love, and plenty
of sword-fighting to boot. However, this is a full-length ballet without a corps,
(although there are plenty of crowd scenes) and the lack of the usual opportunities for
big group dancing, with all their patterns and prettiness, do take a toll on the overall
impact.
Tomasson's is basically a three-act ballet for two dancers, and the San
Francisco Ballet is presenting four sets of Romeos and Juliets during the six performance
run this spring. Each pairing features a danseur who can act, and a ballerina who can let
her hair down. Yuan Yuan Tan, on opening night, is a gorgeous dancer with the right
delicacy, girlishness and abandon, but she seems somehow limited, one-dimensional, you
can’t quite believe that this girl would be impetuous enough to marry a guy she spots
in a crowd. To fake her own death seems unimaginable. Yuri Possokhov, a veteran dancer,
may have been upstaged choreographically by his friends, Mercutio and Benvolio, danced by
Pascal Molat and Nicolas Blanc, but his acting skills are superb—he is able to
convince, to love, to kill and to kill himself, with a characterization that is believable
and heartbreaking. He even manages to make himself look ten years younger.
The rest of the production features opulent costumes and a multi-level
set by Jens-jacob Worsaae, which isn’t taken advantage of as it might be. Tomasson,
the company director as well as choreographer here, always takes pains to give his male
dancers lots to do (perhaps making up for his years as a dancer for George Balanchine, who
rarely paid any attention) so the sword fighting is elaborate and convincing. What is
missing, however, is a motivation for all the antagonism between the Capulets and
Montagues.
Perhaps it’s a little much to ask of a ballet version of
Shakespeare, but there could be more poetry here, and less action. When all is said and
done, however, any opportunity to watch excellent dancers moving through space to
Prokofiev’s uber-romantic music is time well spent.
May 3, 2005 – Michael Wade Simpson
