Romeo and Juliet in the Cinema - the Royal Opera House gets it right

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In the past I have been rather critical of the Royal Opera House's live ballet transmissions to cinemas. In The Royal Ballet's Swan Lake - that's more like it 25 March 2015 I wrote:

"I have not been too kind about HDTV transmissions of the Royal Ballet's performances from Covent Garden ("¡Por favor! Don Quixote streamed to Huddersfield" 13 Oct 2013, Good Quality Hamburger at the Very Least - Giselle streamed from Covent Garden 27 Jan 2014" and "Manon Encore at the Huddersfield Odeon" 20 Oct 2014) though I recanted slightly over The Winter's Tale ("The Winter's Tale - Time to eat my Hat" 29 April 2014). In general I have much preferred Pathe-Live's transmissions from Moscow."

March's Swan Lake was much better and yesterday's Romeo and Juliet was just right. It was as good as anything that has been transmitted from Moscow and I congratulate Ross MacGibbon and his team on the screening.

A large part of the reason for last night's success was the engagement of Ore Oduba. He is a skilled TV presenter in a way that Darcey Bussell is not. He has an easy manner and conveyed the sense of excitement and occasion of the man on the Clapham smartphone so much better than the stream of gushing tweets that had irritated me so much on previous occasions.   Oduba also freed up Bussell for some important interviews.  There were some interesting contributions from Lady MacMillan and Donald MacLeary whom I saw last year at the London Jewish Cultural Centre (see A Minor Miracle - Bringing Le Baiser de la fée back to Life 2 June 2015). I was also impressed by the interview with Garbiel Prokofiev who wrote the music for Shobana Jeyasingh's La Bayadère - the Ninth Life (see La Bayadère - The Ninth Life 29 March 2015). I also enjoyed the conversations with Koen Kessels and Kevin O'Hare as well as the snippets form Steven McRae, Sarah Lamb and others.

The great advantage of live transmissions is that you get to see the detail of the ballet from the close ups. These include facial expressions such as the shame on the faces of Romeo and his mates when they are ticked for brawling off by Escalus, the parties' disdain when they are forced to reconcile, Tybalt's permanent sneer and the vengeful grief of Lady Capulet. Cinema audiences also got a chance to examine the props such as Juliet's poppet in Act I and the vial of liquid that would suspend her animation which she approached with such enormous trepidation. The close ups also allowed me to concentrate on important parts of the choreography such as the courous en pointe as Juliet recoils from Paris the significance of which I had never appreciated on all the occasions that I have seen it on stage.

McRae and Lamb were magnificent in the title roles. I have always liked them in every ballet in which I have seen them perform. A special word of praise is due to Gary Avis who is another of my favourites. He danced Tybalt and was excellent.  All were good -  especially Alexander Campbell as Mercutio, Ryoichi Hirano as Paris, Elizabeth McGorian as Lady Capulet, Genesia Rosato as the nurse, Alastair Marriott as Friar Lawrence and Bennet Gatside as Escalus. It was also great to see Nicholas Georgiadis's rich designs again. They are as awesome now as they were when I first saw that ballet four and a half decades ago.

Romeo and Juliet is not a short ballet but seldom has an evening passed so quickly. Finally, although I promoted the screening in Centenary Square (see Ballet for Everybody in Centenary Square 4 June 2015) I actually saw it in the Pictureville cinema at the National Media Museum a few hundred yards away. There may well have been a party atmosphere in the Square and other big screens up and down the country and you can get in for free but it was a bit chilly on the first night of Autumn, the seats are hard and the screen and audio leave a lot to be desired.  I like my comfort at my time of life and the Museum with its bar, restaurant and convenient parking is one of the most civilized venues I know anywhere in the world.

Postscript

Alison Penfold who lives in London drew my attention to the fact that the big screen in Centenary Square was out of action on Tuesday night.   In response to my post:

"There was a quite a lot of price variation in Bradford where there was a big screen in Centenary Square and folk could see the show for free."

She wrote:

"Except they couldn't: I believe there was some problem and the screening was cancelled?"

That was news to me and I was only a few hundred yards from Centenary Square. It turns out that Alison was right. The Royal Opera House tweeted

The #BPBigScreens at Centenary Square Bradford has been cancelled due to technical difficulties. Apologies for the inconvenience ^H

— Royal Opera House (@RoyalOperaHouse) September 22, 2015

It is  a great shame that that happened. Bradford has many different communities and cultures and Tuesday would have been a great opportunity to introduce ballet to folk who would never otherwise see it.

Further Information

See Live Performances from the Bolshoi and Covent Garden 20 Sept 2015

A Minor Miracle - Bringing Le Baiser de la fée back to Life

Sir Kenneth Macmillan

Source Wikipedia

Today at Ivy House, the former home of Anna Pavlova, a minor miracle occurred. Donald MacLeary, one of the stars of my youth, restored a fragment of Sir Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Le Baiser de la fée before my eyes.  

The idea of restoring one of Sir Kenneth's early works was that of his widow, Deborah. She and Clement Crisp had been invited by Ivy House Music and Dance to discuss Sir Kenneth's legacy at the London Jewish Cultural Centre. In February I had attended an interview by Mr Crisp of Dame Antoinette Sibley at the Royal Ballet School which had also been organized by the Centre (see "Le jour de gloire est arrive - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School 3 Feb 2014). Though this event also involved Mr Crisp and included some fabulous ballet it was very different from the interview with Sibley.

The main difference is that it was not really an interview or even a dialogue. It was more a monologue by Mr Crisp with some choice interventions by Lady MacMillan. It was through her that we learned that the great choreographer relieved tension by knitting.  He would begin a new garment with every ballet and then abandon it as soon as the ballet was finished. Lady MacMillan told him that she would never wear any of his creations and she never did because the ballet was finished before the knitting. When Mr Crisp discussed Sir Kenneth's inventiveness Lady MacMillan reminded us of his reverence for Petipa. Lady MacMillan told us that Sir Kenneth did not say much but when he did it was generally devastating. Clement Crisp for his part reminded us of Sir Kenneth's musicality, the dark side of many of his ballets such as The Judas Tree and curiously of his knowledge of things that he should not have known about. I liked that format and learned a lot from both speakers.

A short interval followed the discussion after which the room turned into a rehearsal studio. The choreologist Diana Curry introduced the audience to Benesch notation. Although the technique was quite new in the 1960s Sir Kenneth always worked with a choreologist and much of Le Baiser de la fée had been recorded. However there was a significant lacuna and that was the solo where the bridegroom danced by MacLeary goes looking for his bride and finds himself waylaid by the fairy. Fortunately that scene had been recorded on film which Ms Curry had analysed and notated.

The role that Sir Kenneth had created for MacLeary was danced by James Hay, a soloist with the Royal Ballet. Ms Curry had taken Hay through her recording earlier in the afternoon. When I first saw him in the late 1960s and early 1970s MacLeary was easily the handsomest of the Royal Ballet's principals and I was delighted to see that the years had been kind to him. Even after 45 years he remains a very good looking figure now. He invited Hay to dance the solo as he understood it. "Too classical" said MacLeary "You are looking for your beautiful fiancée. Be more natural." Though MacLeary complimented the choreologist on her work it was not exactly as he remembered it with the result that the piece was less than a perfect recreation. But it was good and to bring back to life a ballet created years before Hay was born was to my mind nothing short of a miracle.

This afternoon was special in so many ways. Special in re-creating a beautiful ballet. Special for the insights into MacMillan's work and personality from those who knew him best. And special for taking place in the home of one of the greatest dancers of all time. Had there been no Lady MacMillan or Clement Crisp, had there not been a step of dancing, the experience of being in a room in which Pavlova once walked would have been memorable enough for me.