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English National BalletRomeo and Juliet In-the-Round Production June 1998, Royal Albert Hall | |||||||
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Hot from the briefing come details of the new ENB Romeo & Juliet at the Albert Hall - another in-the-round production that follows last year's very successful Swan Lake.
The season will be from the 18th - 30th June and once again the company will be expanded to 120 dancers; its normal compliment is 64. Derek Deane, the ENB Director, wanted to tackle a "non tutu ballet" for a change. However it will mean that ENB will probably be unique in having three Romeo & Juliets in the company: the other two are by Ashton and Nureyev. The first night is being taken by Tamara Rojo and Roberto Bolle, Tamara having just been promoted to Principal. At the press conference, Derek Deane described Tamara as "Extraordinary and unique. She has every single quality that there is for the role of Juliet." Bolle, from La Scala Milan, impressed everybody in last year's Swan Lake and again in the Coliseum Nutcracker season. Lucia Lacarra (now just arrived at San Francisco Ballet and before at Petit's Ballet National de Marseille) who made a big impression in the new Nutcracker, and at the 1997 World Ballet Festival, is also taking some performances as are the company's Senior Principals, Lisa Pavane and Greg Horsman. In a recent interview Greg and Lisa noted that their real life partnership meant that in R&J they were often able to go further together than they would when dancing with others... Daria Klimentova, Monica Perego, Dmitri Gruzdyev, Yat Sen Chang and Laurentiu Guinea (ENB Principals all) are also dancing and Boris de Leeuw from Dutch National Ballet is also returning to play Romeo. Overall there is rather more home grown (ENB) talent in the line-up than there was for Swan Lake. The designer is Roberta Guidi di Bagno, an Italian who has designed for, amongst others, La Scala, Naples and Verona as well as for many films. The natural hope must be that some original Italian Renaissance style will permeate the entire production. One design decision made already is to move the orchestra from the stage; it is likely that it will be out of view entirely, not easy because it too is being expanded to 90 players. Overall Deane believes that the story can be told "sharper and quicker, with better theatrical definition". There is unlikely to be a massive slimming down ("Not 30 mins"!) but expect to see less of the family scenes for example. As with Swan Lake, the production is really being promoted by three parties: ENB, The Albert Hall and Raymond Gubbay - a promoter of more mainstream concerts and opera. They all noted that Swan Lake did play to a new and different audience and this also confirmed the experience from promoting Operas at the RAH. According to Gubbay there is a "Big audience out there waiting to be brought in. This is popular entertainment". While there are currently no plans to tour the Romeo & Juliet, Gubbay did mention that a forthcoming Opera production was then going on to the National Indoor Arena for a few more performances. Assuming R&J is a success, one might speculate that next year ballet might tour elsewhere. There has also been some interest in mounting last year's Swan Lake production elsewhere. This has mainly come from overseas, with Australia, Verona and Japan showing interest. ENB have not toured internationally to any great extent recently and it might well be that they will undertake more in the future. Finally at least two of the performances will be schools matinees (24th and 30th) with tickets at only £4. We enjoyed last year's Swan Lake and look forward to seeing the new Romeo and Juliet; anything that brings new people into ballet and dance is to be applauded. | ||||||||
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