Music by
Sergei Prokofiev

Choreography by
Leonid Lavrovsky

Libretto by
Leonid Lavrovsky
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Radlov and
Adrain Piotrovsky

Staging by
Sergei Radlov

Designs and
Costumes by
Pyotr Williams

Juliet
Evgenia
Obraztsova

Romeo
Denis Matvienko

Tybalt
Dmitri Pykhachev

Mercutio
Alexander Sergeyev

Artists of the
Mariinsky Theatre Ballet

For those bred up on Macmillan’s Romeo and Juliet, the traditional Lavrovsky version manifestly lacks narrative pace and finesse by comparison, and it seems surprising that Prokofiev himself was party to the construction of a libretto which, to the same wonderful music, presents the story in so much less fluent a way. But so it is: yet what makes this irrelevant is the superb Mariinsky dancing, in which exquisite beauty of line and extension, the sheer balleticism even of the most minor gesture, rivets the eye, and the libretto does not matter. Add sumptuous costumes and staging, and with it the enlarged grandeur of the old mimetic style of acting, and the result is rich, satisfying, a feast of the ballet art.
      Evgenia Obraztsova is absolutely the star of the show. She is weightless, boneless, a slip made out of molecules of air in constant gliding motion, a wraith of light; and she is a quintessential Juliet, a child when she is with her nurse, a passionate young bride when she is with Romeo, a willful teenager with her parents, a submissive supplicant with the holy friar; her performance is intense, seemingly constructed of nothing but emotion transfigured into dance, emotions unmixed and unlimited, and fluently expressed. She is superb.
      The two dancers who give the strongest performances after Obraztsova are Alexander Sergeyev and Dmitri Pykhachev, respectively playing Mercutio and Tybalt. Their characteristations are excellent, acting and dancing their parts in superb conjunction, as the roles require. Their fight scene in particular is outstanding. Alexander Sergeyev dances his part with exactly the lightness, elasticity and humour required, and Dmitri Pykhachev his with the bullying, swaggering power and anger required. They illuminate the original Shakespeare with their dancing: a real treat.
      Denis Matvienko is a good Romeo, and a very fine dancer. He has wonderful poise and line, and it is only that he dances among others whose technique and flair is at the same high level as his own that he does not stand out more. That should not obscure his achievement in the role: he is everything Romeo should be, and his exploration of the reflectiveness, the joy, the agony and the intensity of the role is thorough.
      The one surprise is the orchestra, which plays with a raw, brassy, sometimes wooden over-emphasis at times, though equally capable of sweetness in certain passages. It is uneven in sound quality though impeccable in tempo. Prokofiev’s score is as various in mood, colour and texture as the drama itself, fittingly so; an orchestra needs to conform to those transitions with discretion and seamlessness, not lurching from overdone fortissimi in the brasses to ruminative moments in strings and wind, especially in the themes for characters.
AC Grayling