Moriconi and Gable's Romeo and Juliet

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Northern Ballet Romeo and Juliet Sheffield Lyceum Theatre 4 April 2024 14:00

Northern Ballet has two fine productions of Romeo and Juliet in its repertoire.  One was created by Jean-Christophe Maillot which I reviewed in Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way on 8 March 2015 and Romeo and Juliet after the Shrew on 15 Oct 2016.  The other was choreographed by Massimo Moricone and directed and devised by Christopher Gable.  Moricone and Gable's was premiered in 1992 to considerable critical acclaim but it had not been performed for many years.  It was revived in Leeds last month and is now on the second stage of a nationwide tour.  I watched the matinee performance of the ballet in Sheffield yesterday.

There are many different versions of Romeo and Juliet in the world's ballet companies Some like Lavrovsky's and MacMillan's follow Shakespeare quite closely.  Others like Pastor's and Sir Matthew Bourne's leave Shakespeare way behind.  Moricone and Gable's followed the play faithfully as can be seen from the "Romeo & Juliet Story" page on Northern Ballet's website but there were some original details that enhanced the understanding of the story.  In Juliet's bedroom, the nurse reminds Juliet that she is growing up by pointing to changes in her body.  In Act II Mercutio is provoked into challenging Tybalt because Tybalt drags a young woman by her hair.  I do not know whether those touches were suggested by the choreographer or director but Gable will have developed an intimate understanding of Romeo and Juliet from dancing the lead role with Lynn Seymour in MacMillan's work.  

Yesterday's cast included both premier dancers of the company as well as my first choices for the lead roles. When I had the opportunity to learn Juliet's dance at KNT's choreographic intensive in 2016, our teacher Jane Tucker, who had danced in  the same production of the ballet,  set the scene as follows:

"You are 12 years old. This is your first ball. You are so excited you can hardly contain yourself. All eyes are on you. You want everybody to be you."

I have seen many Juliets in my time including Fonteyn and Seymour and while they have dazzled me I have never been able to think of them as 12-year-olds.  Sarah Chun did remind me of that little girl bubbling with excitement and playfully teasing her nurse as she prepared for that first grown-up ball,  Similarly, Jonathan Hanks with his youthful features was ideally cast for Romeo.  In the play, those kids grow up almost overnight and so did Chun and Hanks in the ballet.  They are both remarkable dance actors.  I really warmed to them.  I see that in her bio Sarah Chun said that Juliet would be her dream role.  Yesterday, she lived that dream and she was brilliant.

An important role but one which is often discounted is the nurse or as we would describe her nowadays the nanny.  She appears in all three acts and she has to project all kinds of emotions from playfulness in the first bedroom scene and she romps around with her young charge to fear as she tries to protect Juliet from her grief-stricken and angry parents.   Her role was danced by Harriet Marden. She has been in the company for some time and I must have seen her countless times but this is the first time I have mentioned her in my reviews but I am sure it will not be the last. I shall now be looking out for her.  She showed considerable talent as a character dancer.  I loved the way she crossed herself before she grabbed Juliet's note from between the thighs of one of Romeo's buddies.

It was a treat to see Abigail Prudames, one of my favourite dancers in the company. I have watched her progress through the company's ranks with great satisfaction.  She danced Lady Capulet with exceptional energy and passion.  Her anger upon learning of Tybalt's death in his duel with Romeo was palpable.

Tybalt was danced by Joseph Taylor (another artist I have long admired) who portrayed his character perfectly.  Having met him in real life I know that he is anything but the privileged, headstrong, thuggish young blade who received his comeuppance after bullying young women and knifing Mercutio when he was off his guard but Taylor projected that character faultlessly,  He is a great dance-actor as well as a virtuoso.

One other artist who deserves special mention is Jun Ishi who danced Mercutio.   Again this is the first time that I have mentioned that artist in my reviews but it will not be the last as I shall follow his career with interest in the future.  The audience gasped with relief as he rose to his feet after the stabbing.  We relaxed as he took a swig from a bottle.  We despaired as he sank lifeless to the floor.

Everybody in the cast performed well and if I mentioned every member by name this review would resemble a telephone directory.  All I can do is to congratulate everyone in the show on a magnificent spectacle.

It was of course not just the dancers who made it a good show.  I have already mentioned Gable and Moricone but I should not forget John Longstaff  There were several details in the music which reinforced the story which I had not noticed in other productions.  I am not sure whether the peel of thunder immediately before the overture was part of the orchestration or Gable's direction.  I was a little discombobulated when I first heard it but it made perfect sense in the context of the hail storm at the end of Act II. 

I must also praise  Lez Brotherston's designs.   The opening scene featured a fragment of the maxim "Amor vincit omnia" which of course is the theme of the ballet.  Love did not quite conquer all from the point of view of the young lovers though maybe it did eventually in the embrace of Lords Capulet and Montague just before the curtain fell.   I learnt for the first time from the programme that many of the costumes from the original show had been destroyed or damaged in the flood.  I know that Peter Pan had been lost but I was not aware that Romeo and Juliet had also been affected.  It required a major effort to restore the ballet and it says a lot for a company that undertook that work.

I first got to know Northern Ballet Theatre when Christopher Gable danced with Moira Shearer in The Simple Man.  Some of my favourite works were created while Gable was the Artistic Director of the company and I have always regarded that time as a golden age,   It gives me great pleasure to see Romeo and Juliet again and I am very much looking forward to watching A Christmas Carol in November.

French Revelation: "The Three Musketeers"

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Northern Ballet The Three Musketeers The Lyceum, Sheffield, 27 Oct 2018, 19:45

Coincidentally the last three ballets that I have seen have been set in pre-revolutionary France.  There was Ashton's Fille that I first saw over 50 years ago which was performed at The Lowry by Birmingham Royal Ballet.   There was Manon by Sir Kenneth MacMillan danced by English National Ballet at the Manchester Opera House.  Finally, there was Northern Ballet's rendering of David Nixon's Three Musketeers at the Sheffield Lyceum. 

As I know La Fille mal gardée very well and as it had been created by one of the greatest choreographers who has ever lived I was sure that I would like that work best.  I thought Manon would be number two as it had been created by one of the other all time greats.  I did not know Manon as well as I know Fille but I had seen two impressive HDTV transmissions from Covent Garden. I feared The Three Musketeers would be a bit of an anticlimax as I have not liked every ballet that Nixon has made.  As it happened I enjoyed The Three Musketeers most of all though, I hasten to add, I liked Fille and Manon very much too.

I think the reason that I liked the Musketeers so much is that the company danced particularly well.  They performed with energy and flair.  They were well rehearsed - as slick and polished as ever I have seen them.  They looked as though they were enjoying themselves - particularly the sword fights which were as gripping as anything in Romeo and Juliet - and the touches of slapstick humour like burying the washerwomen with laundry.

I was delighted to see Gavin McCaig (whom I had featured when he first joined the company) as Athos and Javier Torres (my dancer of the year for 2017) as Porthos.  Riku Ito was a sleek d'Artagnan and Sean Bates a convincing Aramis. I am used to seeing Mlindi Kulashe in villainous roles like Mr Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre, the Fury in The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, Casanova's persecutor, the Beast in Beauty and the Beast and Tybalt.  It was a surprise to see him as an "easily manipulated" king.

As for the female roles, the heroine is Constance danced on Saturday by Ayami Miyata.  Intriguingly, I see from her profile that she would have been a lawyer had she not been a dancer. I know of many barristers who imagine themselves on stage.  It is rare and a little flattering to find a beautiful dancer who must have contemplated life the other way round.  Constance's nemesis is Milady de Winter danced by Minju Kang. The fight between those women and the discovery of Milady's branding, of course, the denouement of the story.   It was good to see Pippa Moore again as Constance's mum and Rachael Gillespie as Marie de Hautbois.

The libretto by David Drew bears about as much resemblance to Alexandre Dumas's novel as Petipa's Don Quixote does to Cervantes's.   There is a magnificent score by Sir Malcolm Arnold as arranged by John Longstaff.  The sets by Charles Cusick Smith and costumes are gorgeous.

The show moves on to Canterbury which is easy to reach from London by HS1.   It opens at the Marlowe Theatre on the 31 Oct and continues to 3 Nov 2018.   This is one of the best ballets in the British Isles not to come out of London.   I urge my metropolitan chums to see it.

Jane Eyre Second Time Round

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Northern Ballet Jane Eyre 13 April 2018, 19:45  Lyceum, Sheffield

The first time I saw Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre I described it as "one of the best new ballets I have seen all year from any company and it is the best new work from Northern Ballet for many years if not decades" (see Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre: the best new Ballet from the Company in 20 Years 2 June 2016). I saw it again in Sheffield on Friday and I am still of that view.

Jane Eyre is a very long read.  It consists of 38 chapters and was first published in 3 volumes.  There is a good summary of the story in Wikipedia.  Although it cannot have been easy to compress a book of that length into a two act ballet, Marston preserved its essence in her libretto.  Most of the characters of the novel are reproduced in the ballet.  Marston has also invented a set of male characters called the "D-men" who are danced by some of the company's most experienced members. They haunt Jane at critical moments of her life.  In that regard, they perform a role similar to that of the chorus in Greek drama.  I noticed a similar use of such characters in The Suit (see Excellence - Ballet Black's Double Bill 17 March 2018).

Many of the dancers I saw at Richmond in 2016 were in Friday's performance in Sheffield though some had different roles. Dreda Blow danced Jane as an adult on Friday as she had two years ago. Jane as a girl was danced by Rachael Gillespie who had been Adèle last time.  Victoria Sibson, who had been Bertha Mason in Richmond, was Aunt Reed in Sheffield. However, there was a different Rochester.  Joseph Taylor performed that role on Friday.

Each and every member of the cast performed well.  Blow is the only Jane I know.  The last time I saw her I wrote:

"Blow is a fine dancer but I have never seen her dance better than she did tonight."

I can only say the same about her performance on Friday.  Taylor delivered a confident and convincing performance as Rochester.  Gillespie is one of my favourite dancers in the company and her portrayal as the young Jane did not disappoint me.  However, the performance that impressed me most in Sheffield was Mariana Rodrigues's as Bertha.  She makes only a couple of brief appearances but her role is a key one.  The attempted bigamy scene has a lot in common with the mad scene in  Giselle and if she is ever cast as Giselle I should be very interested to see what she makes of it.  I think she is an artist to watch and I will make a point of looking out for her.

Once again I admired Patrick Kinmonth's sets - especially the Pennine backdrop with its dry stone walls. Also his costumes, especially Bertha's ragged dress.  The more I hear of Philip Feeney's music the more I like his work. He also wrote the score for The Suit  which was another successful collaboration with Marston.

I concluded my review of the performance in Richmond with the hope that the ballet would be revived as I had hoped to see it again.  I am very glad that Jane Eyre is back in Northern Ballet's repertoire and that it has been staged in major venues this time.  I am particularly glad that it is coming to the Wells and Lowry for I think it will do well in both of those theatres.

Motoring

Oldsmobile sedan from the 1950s

Author Sigmund

Source Wikipedia

Matthew Bourne's The Car Man Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, 24 June 2015

Matthew Bourne has never been quite my cup of tea but that does not stop my recognizing quality when I see it. Last night at the Sheffield Lyceum we had quality in spades. Quality in Lez Brotherson's designs. Quality in Terry Davies's score which incorporates Bizet and builds on it. Quality in the dancing including an impressive first performance by Tim Hodges in the role of Luca. Above all, quality in choreography by Matthew Bourne. The Car Man is the best production by New Adventures that I have seen to date.

Although it is described on the cover of the programme as "Bizet's Carmen re-imagined" it is actually a very ingenious and original work. It is set not outside a cigarette factory in 19th century Seville but in small town America of the 1950s. This was a time when women wore full skirted dresses of bright fabrics and elaborate hair styles that billowed in the dance. It was a time when Oldsmobiles and Studebakers were as capacious and majestic as ocean liners.

There is no Carmen in The Car Man but there is Luca. He seduces Angelo (Liam Mower) who is the nearest we get to Don Jose. He is a slightly built, bookish, inoffensive and slightly effeminate youth who works for Dino (Alan Vincent) in his garage. Dino employs most of the young men in the cast as mechanics and his wife Lana (Ashley Shaw) and his sister in law, Rita (Katy Lowenhoff) in his bar. The mechanics rag Angelo mercilessly. Only Luca takes his part teaching him how to use his fists as well as making advances towards him. However, Luca proves a false friend. He gets into a fight with Dino after making love to Lana. He wounds Dino fatally leaving Angelo to take the blame. Angelo is arrested and attacked in custody by a warder (Dan Wright). No doubt having been toughened by his imprisonment Angelo overpowers his attacker and escapes from prison with the warder's pistol seeking revenge. The nearest we get to Michaela in The Car Man is sister Rita who sees the crime from the start and tries to right the injustice to Angelo.

Well it's a good, tight, robust story that works and if anyone in Leeds who attended last Saturday's narrative dance perambulation (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015) remains in doubt as to what is meant by narrative dance he or she need only take the motorway to Sheffield. This is not ballet as such but it is dance that takes place in a theatre which for most theatre goers is all that matters. It is dramatic. It is exciting. It is spectacular. It is fun.

This company has devoted followers who leapt to their feet and practically whooped the house down at the final curtain call. That never happens in ballet but it is no bad thing as it introduces new audiences to dance in a way that no amount of midscale tours and live screenings from London or Moscow will achieve in a month of Sundays. As I said in the first paragraph this genre is not exactly my cup of tea (and despire an impressive performance it still isn't) but that does not stop me from appreciating it.

Other Reviews

Roslyn Sulcas  Review: Suspense and Charisma in ‘The Car Man’ in London  23 July 2015

Northern Ballet's Cleopatra in Sheffield

There are some ballets that have to be seen more than once to be appreciated fully. David Nixon's Cleopatra is one of them. I saw it in The Grand in Leeds on 6 March 2014 and reviewed it in  "Cleopatra - Northern Ballet, The Grand, Leeds 6 March 2014" on the 7 March 2014. Although I was impressed I was not bowled over as I was by Cinderella on boxing day (see "Northern Ballet's Cinderella - a Triumph!" 27 Dec 2013) or by Birmingham Royal Ballet's Prince of the Pagodas earlier this year (see "Lear with a Happy Ending - Birmingham Royal Ballet's Prince of the Pagodas 30 Jan 2014" 31 Jan 2014). I wrote: "This is a ballet that has to be seen more than once and probably many times to be appreciated fully."

Well, yesterday I saw Cleopatra again and enjoyed it so much more. I don't know whether that was because I had seen the ballet quite recently and knew what to look for or whether it was because I was more comfortable in the Sheffield Lyceum than I had been in Leeds and could concentrate on the performance. 

The Lyceum is in my humble opinion the best large theatre in Yorkshire allowing plenty of leg room, a good view of the stage from just about every point in the auditorium, spacious bar areas, efficient and courteous staff, ample parking across the road and plenty of reasonably priced eateries within walking distance. So much better than The Grand in every way. Why Northern Ballet does not make more use of The Lyceum - indeed why it dies not appoint it as its flagship theatre - beats me. For much of the day I have been asking on twitter and BalletcoForum why there isn't more ballet in Sheffield (a city region of 1.9 million and within an hour's drive of several million more) and I have yet to receive a convincing answer. As a Mancunian exile living in "Summer Wine Country"  with no axe to grind in Yorkshire rivalries I'd say that as a city Sheffield knocks Leeds into a cocked hat; but as I sport the red rose in inter-Pennine rivalries what do I know.

Anyway returning to the show, it was interesting to compare last night's cast with those who appeared on the 6 March 2014. On that occasion I saw Martha Leebolt for whom the role of Cleopatra had been created. Last night it was Michela Paolacci who interpreted the role quite differently. Now Cleopatra is not a nice lady. She marries and then murders her brother in his bath and she despatches Mark Antony with a chilling sauté but, whereas Leebolt's Cleo was as hard as nails, I somehow warmed to Paolacci's. I could imagine her defence counsel's plea of mitigation - a single mum, coming from a dysfunctional home, a victim of circumstances - all that sort of thing. For me the highpoint of the ballet is the confrontation of the fair Octavia danced brilliantly by Pippa Moore with Cleopatra over Mark Antony (Ashley Dixon). Octavia represents everything Western and decent while Cleopatra is sultry, sexy and degenerate. Of the other roles, Jospeph Taylor (who has only been with the company for a couple of years) was a great Wadjet, Hironeo Takahashi a convincing Caesar and Matthew Topliss (another recent recruit) a suitably imperious Octavian.

The cast three weeks ago was the company's first team. Last night provided an opportunity for Northern Ballet's promising newcomers, but yesterday's show was not in any way second rate. All danced well and all deserve to be commended. Even though I now know the ballet quite well I should still like to see it again. Too bad it is not to be staged outside Yorkshire this year. I do hope the company revives it again soon.