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

I hope Peregrine likes his carrots

In Act I of the Royal Ballet's version of La Fille mal gardée the wealthy farmer Thomas produces a pony and trap for Lise and her mother. The pony is called Peregrine and in the interval it was given a basket of carrots and apples by Darcey Bussell.  Bussell told us that it has a fan club on twitter. That was something that I really didn't know and I wouldn't have found out had I not attended the HDTV transmission of La Fille mal gardée at the Huddersfield Odeon yesterday.

It wasn't the only nugget of information that I picked up. My ears pricked up when Lesley Collier told Bussell that Sir Frederick Ashton was a sort of ballerina. I can't remember exactly what she said because I was startled but I remember she referred to something in his eyes and I couldn't help thinking "how true." As it happens I actually saw Sir Frederick dance a female role - one of the ugly sisters in Cinderella with Sir Robert Helpmann - but I wasn't thinking of that. I remembered the story about his seeing Anna Pavlova in Lima as a boy. It was the event that fired his interest in ballet.  Insights like that together with the voice over with Natalia Osipova where she mentioned how she was learning how to carry her arms in the English style (something to which Collier also referred in her interview with Bussell) are some of the advantages of HDTV.

Another is the detail that cinema audiences see. Let me give you just one example.   I must have seen a dozen performances of Fille on the stage over the years including two in the last 9 months but I had never noticed the significance of the scarves until last night. At the beginning of Act II Simone picks two scarves out of a chest of drawers. Her daughter chooses the pink one at first but her mother wants to wear that and she gives her a yellow one.  During Act II Simone pops out to collect Thomas, Alain and the notary so that they can seal the marriage contract. Colas, however, has managed to sneak in to the parlour and is hiding below some sheaves of corn. He emerges and the lovers dance a pas de deux in which they exchange scarves. Colas was wearing a pink one and Simone finds Lise wearing a pink scarf and not the yellow one when she returns from her errand. It is her first intimation that something has been going on. That and the corn sheaves all over the floor rather than in the neat pile in which she had left them.

So I learned a lot of new things about Ashton's ballet in the Huddersfield Odeon that I would never have discovered in the best seats of the stalls in the Opera House itself.  In the past I have compared the Royal Opera House's transmissions very unfavourably with Pathé Live's transmissions from Moscow. The House's transmissions are definitely getting better. They would be better still if they could hire the admirable Katerina Novikova.  I love Bussell but I want to remember her as a ballerina not as a TV celebrity. That's why I can never bring myself to watch Strictly. The House should also lose the tweets though I have to say that I smiled when someone said that he would never touch KFC again after seeing the hens in the ballet.

So what of the performance itself? Steven McRae was a splendid Colas. He is a great dancer with enormous charm and humour. I've never met the man but if I did I know I would take to him. I'm much less sure about Osipova. She is also a great dancer. Her jumps are magnificent. But there are some ballets where you don't need virtuosity and Ashton's Fille is one of them. You need a sweet dancer like Laura Morera who opened the season (see The Best Fille Ever 18 April 2015) or Maureya Lebowitz whom I saw in Nottingham last year (see Fille bien gardée - Nottingham 26 June 2014 27 June 2014). "Is this what Ashton intended?" I thought to myself as I watched the closing scene of Act II as Lise in her wedding dress leaps jubilantly round the stage. I feel really terrible expressing even the mildest reserve about Osipova. She is, as I said above, a great dancer and in some roles such as Tatiana in Cranko's Onegin she is perfect. I know she tried last night. Though she is not a natural Lise she is still a delight to watch.

As for the other dancers, I liked Philip Mosley's Simone very much. He is a fine character dancer. Paul Kay was good as Alain too as was Christopher Saunders as his father. I congratulate Michael Stojko as the cock and each of the hens. Meaghan Grace Hinkis told us how hot and uncomfortable it is to dance in the hen suit. "It's a real workout" she added. They only have a mesh aperture in the mask for vision and that headpiece can easily be dislodged. I liked all Lise's friends. But my favourite character artist yesterday was Gary Avis as the notaire. Not so much because of his dancing (though he is always good) but for his portrayal of a country solicitor. He must have some connection with the law because he reminds me of so many of those who have instructed me over the years.

Altogether, it was a lovely evening and it has tempted me back to the Huddersfield retail park for the encore on Sunday.