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Balletomanes in London have been weaned on the MacMillan Romeo and, there are so many other versions (Lavrovsky, Cranko, Nureyev, Ashton, Tudor, Hampson, Donnellan, Martins, Cullberg, Pastor, and even Robbins’ choreography for West Side Story spring immediately to mind); there will be others. We all know how the story ends, both in Shakespeare and its danced interpretations: and yet, in terms of the latter, it wasn’t how Prokofiev intended his score to be used. Jointly with the Bolshoi’s Director (Mutnych), his dramatist (Piotrovsky) and scenarist (Radlov) and the Central Committee’s Adviser who oversaw the Bolshoi’s repertoire (Dinamov), he initially chose a happy ending for the libretto of his ballet to be premiered at the Bolshoi in 1936. Of course, this was never to happen.

Ironically, as support evaporated amongst the State apparatchiks for this novel re-casting of Shakespeare, Radlov lost the will to defend his scenario, allegedly saying that it was not worth dying so that Romeo and Juliet should live! Prophetic words, since Mutnych, Piotrovsky and Dinamov were all to be executed before the ballet was eventually premiered in Czechoslovakia as 1938 came to a close. Within months, Lavrovsky’s iconic version was in production and Prokofiev’s music was unstitched and cobbled back together in this new “vandalised” version; the original being supposedly lost forever.

But, in ballet, we have come to know that “lost forever” can often be a temporary condition, and thanks to the research of Simon Morrison (a Princeton professor of Music) the original scenario and piano score came to light in 2003, setting in train a sequence of events which led to Mark Morris and this European Premiere of Romeo & Juliet, as originally intended in terms of story and music, although certainly not choreography. All this is accurately reflected in the title with the codicil of ‘…on Motifs of Shakespeare’ added out of bureaucratic caution in 1935.

Several of Morris’s Motifs are done well, enhancing the rich tableau of Verona and the two rival households. His use of gesture and enriched characterisation comes through strongly, especially amplifying the roles of the Nurse (a bright, bubbly performance by Lauren Grant), Friar Laurence – whose intervention prevents the double tragedy – and an especially loathsome Paris (venomously portrayed by Bradon McDonald). He also makes the most of a small stage and cast to seemingly fill the market place of Verona and the Capulet’s Ball. It also strikes me as the most natural circumstance for the newly-wed lovers to wake up in each other’s arms unencumbered with nightclothes. Unfortunately, however, even with this artistic intimacy, I was never moved by David Leventhal and Rita Donahue in these leading roles.

Although the quest for artistic authenticity is worthwhile and this was always an interesting and generally entertaining production, some elements were hard to swallow. The casting of cod-pieced females in the roles of Tybalt and Mercutio worked in relation to their own combative relationship (and Amber Darragh was, in so many ways, outstanding as the good guy) but it all goes slightly wrong when Romeo kills the obviously feminine Tybalt; neither is the incongruity of the final pas de deux, to music we would normally hear in the balcony scene, resolved by the simple, romantic quality of its choreography – they are, we are told, ‘elsewhere’ but it could be as ethereal spirits on a cloud; and the additional 20 minutes of music is mostly accounted for in the bizarre episode of Paris presenting many presents – in honour of their betrothal –at Juliet’s bedside, apparently accompanied by half of Verona, all of whom seemed blissfully unaware that the object of this celebration lay comatose on the bed.

Worst of all is the most dreadful choreography for dancing and fighting with swords that I’ve ever seen, not helped in any way by the obvious woodenness of the weapons. Ironically, these are the only fight sequences in ballet that appear to use correct fencing footwork but – perhaps as a deliberate attempt to eschew militarism – the fencing itself is nondescript. A couple of six year-olds with wooden sticks could do just as well.

Instead of being a worthy historical recovery of the original collaborative vision for using Prokofiev’s score, these scenes made it seem like a pastiche, a parody of Romeo & Juliet, which, without a Balcony or Crypt scene and turned – at the very last minute – from tragedy to farce ultimately made it seem nothing like Romeo & Juliet, at all. More like Romeo & Betty.