Romeo & Juliet
Mariinsky Ballet
The Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden
3, 4, 5 and 6 August at 7.30pm
This Mariinsky Ballet season opens with the return of one of the most cherished and admired of Russian ballets from the twentieth century: Leonid Lavrovsky's celebrated realisation of Romeo and Juliet to Prokofiev's music, which was created at the Mariinsky Theatre in January 1940. The staging has been treasured in St. Petersburg ever since, and this production still honours the original version. Guided by the dramatic force and lyric power of Prokofiev's score, Lavrovsky's choreography draws a grandly moving portrait of the star-crossed lovers and the Renaissance society which frames their tragedy.
Created for the sublime Galina Ulanova, her successors in the role have included some of the greatest of Russian ballerinas, and the Mariinsky Ballet will show four of today's leading exponents: Alina Somova, Olesia Novikova, Ekaterina Osmolkina and Evgenia Obrazstova partnered by Vladimir Shklyarov, Igor Kolb, Evgeny Ivanchenko and Anton Korsakov as their Romeos. The great tradition of Petersburg interpretations of such masterpieces is superbly upheld by these latest names in the long roll-call of Mariinsky artistry.
