Romeo and Juliet is a piece of an exceptional significance in the history of Czech ballet. Although the official premiere of the ballet, choreographed by Leonid Lavrovski was held at Leningrad Kirov Theater in 1940, as early as on 30th December 1938 Ivo Váňa Psota put on the stage of Provincial Theatre in Brno his own Romeo and Juliet set to an earlier version of Prokofiev's music. Although the ballet score was not completed at that time and the libretto of Brno version was not preserved, it is Psota’s production that is considered by some the world premiere of Prokofiev's ballet.
Boasting a strong storyline and beautiful music, choreographers have been frequently coming back to this piece ever since and audiences are thankful for every new production. The ballet has been staged at the National Theatre in Prague six times already, in total there have been twenty-eight different versions of this piece mounted in the Czech Republic so far. Among the most significant Czech productions undoubtedly belongs the choreography by Saša Machov with an unforgettable performance by Miroslav Kůra as Mercutio. The latter then staged in collaboration with the director Petr Weigl his own version, which premiered in June 1971 and remained in the repertoire of the National Theatre for twenty seasons. Critics and audiences alike appreciated in this ballet natural acting, dancing and convincing emotions, the ballet was even made into a film and won the prestigious Prix d' Italia.
It seems that the artistic director of the National Theatre Ballet and choreographer of the current version of Romeo and Juliet Petr Zuska has eschewed any historical influence of this piece in the Czech Republic (as well as countless famous versions staged abroad), on the contrary, he pursued his own way, which is controversial in many aspects. He made numerous fundamental changes in the libretto, or, to be more precise, he wrote a brand new one, which reinterprets Shakespeare in a rather distinctive manner. The characters of nurse, Paris and Benvolio have been omitted, in contrast, a new scene with comedians performing theatre within theatre has been added. These "personal" changes, however, are not the most important in the story. Petr Zuska tried to deliver different meanings of the story and move it to some kind of higher level. His ballet is most of all about contrasts, which is foreshadowed by an unusual introduction with captions projected on a screen such as: "Queen Mab presents: life and death, chaos and order, night and day, love and hatred, dream and reality, reason and emotion..." From choreographer’s perspective the principal contrast is between the masculine and feminine principle, which occurs at several levels: the house of Montague is represented exclusively by male dancers of the corps de ballet, whereas the house of Capulet consists purely of their female counterparts, thus on one hand there is the antagonism between the rival houses and on the other hand, the natural attraction between a man and woman. Then there are rather problematic characters of Romeo’s mother and Juliet's father, whose relationship seems to be oddly intimate and at least as much contradictory as the relationship between both parts of the corps. Romeo, Juliet and their love then seemingly lose their central position in the tragedy.
The most significant change in the story is the emphasized role of Father Lorenzo and the newly added character of Queen Mab, who becomes the main initiator of the plot. The good priest introduces and concludes the whole production. From the very beginning he is haunted by a premonition that something bad happens, which he constantly tries to prevent and manage the course of events to the benefit of all concerned. Nevertheless, there is no way he can succeed, because his adversary is disproportionately more powerful than him. Queen Mab, the mythical ruler of the realm of shadows, represents from Zuska’s perspective the irrationality of life and being, she is neither good nor evil, yet combines both. In the end, however, she comes across to the audiences as a completely negative character who gleefully manipulates both people and events just to drive Lorenzo and his good will to his knees.
Queen Mab is really pulling the strings of the story, so she appears in almost every scene of the ballet. During the introduction she lingers around Father Lorenzo, who cannot see her, but feels the presence of a vague supernatural being, which scares him. In Zuska’s concept Lorenzo is the most important figure among the citizens of Verona: he does his best to keep the peace and order there, settles all the quarrels and helps everybody. He has a good relationship with both the Capulets and the Montagues and even personally puts both Romeo and Juliet to bed (and thus replaces a nanny in the scene Juliet - girl). However, at this moment, just before falling asleep Queen Mab for the first time enters the lives of these young and still careless people to awaken an indefinite desire in them that lures them away from Lorenzo. When Mab crosses with her palm above their faces, time stops and for a moment they find themselves in another dimension. Moments when Mab in this way affects different characters in the ballet are plentiful, maybe way too much. She dominates the ballroom scene as well, however, more problematic elements appear here. The first thing that takes the audiences aback is that the Capulets and the Montagues dance together, Juliet’s father and Romeo's mother communicate with each other easily. During the dance everybody has a mask that defines his or her affiliation to either house, but during the scene they take their masks off several times, thus blurring the differences. The moment of the meeting between Romeo and Juliet, the famous example of love at first sight is again guided by Queen Mab. The boy and the girl find themselves facing each other in masks and time freezes: Mab removes their masks and they suddenly fall in love with each other.
Mab is not missing even in the balcony scene, she literally bears Juliet in Romeo’s arms so that they can dance a love duet. Nevertheless, in one of the key moments of the ballet, where their mutual affection bursts out for the first time she has a rather disturbing effect on the scene and the duet, usually quite lengthy, is divided into several parts with Father Lorenzo entering it as well. The overall effect of the love duet is thus considerably diminished.
The second act begins with a scene of comedians on the street of Verona, two adults and four children perform in a nutshell the whole story of Romeo and Juliet with the difference that Romeo does not poison himself in the end and everything ends well. This directorial innovation is original and students of the preparatory ballet school are cute, however, the scene is somewhat superficial. After that the Shakespearean tragedy begins to culminate indeed. At the time of the death of Mercutio and Tybalt Mab appears, this time with a white glove, just one touch is enough for her victims to leave the world of men and finally see the Queen of Darkness. Lorenzo’s last attempt to save the situation is thwarted by Mab again. The friar just manages to hand over to Juliet a black glove with magical powers to put her temporarily to death, however, Romeo fails to receive the message (due to Mab’s intervention). Lorenzo learns this only when he sees the queen leading the dead lovers into her kingdom, while he remains alive with his pain.
Choreography of the production has been created in an eclectic style that combines neoclassical ballet and modern dance techniques. Female dancers perform in pointe shoes, but their bodies are formed to unusual shapes and step combinations. The male dancers perform big jumps and classical spins, combined with some rather acrobatic figures. Sharp, angular and almost jerky movements contrast with rounded shapes, such as swaying the upper torso and hips. Partner dancing is very demanding, frequently there are many lifts in a quick succession, while in some scenes the partners have to dance with full face masks. The stage sets are frequently employed too, the dancers hang from the galleries, climb the stairs and slide down. Petr Zuska often claims that in his choreographies every note should be danced, which is demonstrated here as well. This at some points results in a staggering pace and also the fact that individual dance acts are very similar as to the dynamics of moveme
nt, indeed, from this perspective they are very much alike.As for the movement characteristics, Queen Mab, Father Lorenzo and Mercutio are the most clearly defined characters of the ballet. Queen Mab combines both jerky and rounded movement, her stage demeanor radiates icy calmness and superiority above all. Yet both performers of the role Nikola Márová (first cast) and Miho Ogimoto (second cast) gave a very different impression. Mab performed by Nikola Márová was strict and adamant, her movements were sharper and more exaggerated. In contrast, there was some leniency in Ogimoto’s Mab, her character was not so explicitly negative. There was restraint and balanced expression in her dancing.
Father Lorenzo, although being one of the main characters, is not so much of a dancing part. Compared to Mab, who danced with everybody in the ballet, Lorenzo worked as a soothing element, his movement vocabulary consisted mainly of expressive gestures. However, in moments of greatest mental stress and despair his character began to dance, too. Viktor Konvalinka (first cast) performed with more energ y, on the contrary, Alexander Katsapov put more emphasis on the inner feeling, his expression radiated compassion for the fate of the lovers.
The role of Mercutio, a bit reckless young man who likes to have fun and worries about nothing, is carried out nicely from both the dancing and expressive point of view. Both Mathias Deneux and Matěj Šust expressed the humorous moments aptly and portrayed the nature of their character with ease. The antagonist to this character is Tybalt, not only in nature, but also in growth. In contrast to the small and agile Mercutio, Tybalt, as performed by both Giovanni Rotolo and Marek Svobodník, is well-built, serious and aggressive, missing a single ounce of sense of humour, which was adequately reflected in the movement vocabulary and expression of the performers.
Unfortunately, the parts of Romeo and Juliet were somewhat more shallow – as for movement, they were not distinctly characterized and their interaction was often interrupted, as mentioned above, by various elements. The first ca st was soloist Ondřej Vinklát with demi-soloist Marta Drastíková, their youth and appearance came up to the idea of the famous star-crossed lovers. Their partner dancing, however, was not perfect at the opening night, so the emotional depth was not portrayed in full extent. Mutual chemistry worked better between the second cast, the Italian dancer Francesco Scarpato and Andrea Kramešová. Especially Scarpato gave an excellent dance and acting performance, his Romeo was full of humanity.
Zuska’s ballet is rich in symbols, and so is scenography by Jan Dušek. Its main motive are profiles of a man and woman that move apart and then closer again, as if it were two kissing faces that at some points completely merge into one dark wall. Another stage design element is just a simple two-story arcade structure, which shifts as needed and spatially defines the scene. Separation of individual scenes is at some points done by rapidly falling black curtains, the movements of which were frequently accompanied by creaking, thus revealing the technical condition of the State Opera often criticized by Zuska. Another symbolic element of the ballet were the abovementioned masks, which first appeared at the ball of Capulets and have been continuously present in some way for the rest of the ballet. They are supposed to characterize the roles that everyone in the society plays. Masks are composed of both the feminine and masculine face, two principles that attract and deter each other at the same time. Romeo and Juliet strive to resist the black and white way of looking at the world, they want to break all taboos and therefore throw their masks away and refuse to wear them again.
The costumes by Roman Šolc can hardly surprise an experienced theatregoer, the same artist (a former dancer, who once in Pilsen even danced Mercutio) created costumes for numerous ballets by Zuska. Traditionally they lack both flair and imagination. Very outlandish were especially the colour combinations in costumes for corps de ballet, the female part of the Capulets in red inappropriately c ontrasted with the Montagues in mauve, the style was exactly halfway between historicism and modernism. Romeo and Juliet were dressed in some rather undefinable colours as well, her wispy light orange dress obviously went against his pale blue to purple outfit. It is known that Šolc frequently repeats himself, and indeed, the white costume of Queen Mab strongly evoked a character from an earlier Zuska’s choreography Requiem.
The score by Sergei Prokofiev was, as in many earlier versions, exposed to significant cuts and partial reconstruction of the musical numbers. Prague State Opera Orchestra conducted by Václav Zahradník performed at the first premiere with numerous inaccuracies and even at the second premiere their performance left much to be desired.
Choreographer Petr Zuska strives to interpret Shakespeare's story of a great love in his own way, to reflect various philosophical metaphors and symbols in it. And in many ways he certainly succeeded. The question is whether in fact he has not created a completely different ballet with the young lovers of Verona having only cameo roles and where the tragic theme of forbidden love becomes secondary. Queen Mab is the real director who has command of both people and events, as if they were mere puppets. And for the audiences it is difficult to identify themselves with puppets, whose emotions are no longer so believable when we see into the Director Fate/Queen Mab’s workshop. More so that the immortal story of great love and emotions, the reason why both ballet dancers and audiences love Prokofiev’s ballet so much, is missing in the current version by Petr Zuska.
Written from the first and second premiere on the 14th and 15th November, 2013, at the State Opera, Prague.
Romeo and Juliet
Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Choreography and stage direction: Petr Zuska Stage design: Jan Dušek
Costumes: Roman Šolc
Lighting design: Petr Zuska, Pavel Dautovský
Assistants to the choreographer: Tereza Podařilová, Alexei Afanassiev, Michaela Černá, Radek Vrátil
World Premiere: December 30th, 1938
Josef Bartos
Thank you for your thoughts. One got stuck in my mind – that passion makes us different from AI. Just yesterday I read…I am a dance critic. I am a member of an endangered species