Gloucestershire echo review
January 24, 2007

ROMEO AND JULIET - MOSCOW CITY BALLET - EVERYMAN THEATRE

This has to be a rave review! In over fifty years of watching ballet I cannot recall a production that I have admired and enjoyed more. So sumptuous was the production it was hard to believe that this was a touring company currently visiting the UK for the sixteenth consecutive year.

There were many splendours I shall remember. The curtain rose at the beginning to reveal two groups of figures, the Montagues on one side the Capulets on the other Between them backstage, illuminated in red and wielding swords were the the heads of the two opposing families. The scene closed with the bodies held aloft in anticipation of the events to follow. At the ballet's end the curtain descended on a similar tableau, those tragic events having unfolded. Throughout, I admired the breathtaking choreography of artistic director Victor Smirnov-Golovanov. The stage was always busily occupied with every dancer an integral part of the whole action. Another splendour was the costumes and set design by Natalia Stenberg both of which pleased the eye and fed the imagination.

And as for the dancing! The standard of every member of the company was extremely high with dancing of a very high quality from all the principals. Permeating everything was that enthralling music by Prokofiev with its leit-motifs evoking either the Capulets or the Montagues. Mikhail Mikhayov and Tatiana Krasnova, as Romeo and Juliet, danced their pas de deux with incredible abandon and passion, the latter being particularly impressive. As for the rest of the so-talented cast I have room only to mention Talgat Kazhabayev as a strikingly dynamic and eye-catching Tybalt. Catch this great production if you can!