Romeo and Juliet, English National Ballet, London Coliseum

Romeo and Juliet, English National Ballet, London Coliseum | reviews, news & interviews

Romeo and Juliet, English National Ballet, London Coliseum

Nureyev's jam-packed choreography brushes up well in this handsome revival

by David NiceSunday, 09 January 2011

Yat-Sen Chang demonstrating Mercutio's high-flying cheekiness at the Capulet BallPatrick Baldwin

Busy, busy, busy tends to have been the watchword of Rudolf Nureyev’s elaborate choreographies. Prokofiev, as the most direct of musical dramatists, demanded streamlining from Sergey Radlov’s complicated scenario in 1935, but Nureyev tends to have jammed extra plotlines back in with un-Shakespearean knobs on. Thank heavens Patricia Ruanne, his Juliet for the initial four-week run back in 1977, and his first Tybalt, Frédéric Jahn, have returned to work so hard on the staging's fiddly bits as to make most of this accomplished revival seem like easy storytelling.

ENB Emerging Dancer-nominee Max Westwell, replacing fellow candidate Vadim Muntagirov, made definite, handsome work of the first showy solo Nureyev gives his Romeo

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