Romeo and Juliet, Eternal Lovers

Choreographed by former Australian Ballet principal Stanton Welch, and danced by the Houston Ballet, the company he has directed since 2003 making its first visit here, the ballet premiered in February last year to general applause. The Houston Chronicle decided it was “Traditional but swift-moving … the work of an agile storyteller who has matured as a dancemaker.” Karen van Ulzen, editor of Dance Australia, called “a masterful interpretation” and “a feast for the eyes”. Welch adds some characters and balances drama and humour. The sword fights are thrilling, and, says van Ulzen, “The choreography is constantly on the move, with solos and groups bubbling up out of the swirl of movement rather than pausing the action”. The first recorded balletic version was Eusebio Luzzi’s (Venice 1785). In five acts, the music was by Luigi Marescalchi, a proli fic composer of operas and ballets. Felippo Beretti produced his version for la Scala, Milan, in 1788 and there were some others in the early 19th century, notably Vincenzo Galeotti’s for the Royal Danish Ballet (Copenhagen, 1811). But it wasn’t until the heady days of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes that other choreographers of any signi ficance used the play as material, and then it was with a distinctly modern twist. In 1926, Vaslav Nijinsky’s sister Bronislava and George Balanchine created a two-scene piece with music by Constant Lambert in which the two leads were seen rehearsing, then performing in costume. After the characters’ deaths, the dancers reappeared as themselves in leather coats, pilots’ caps and goggles and eloped by plane. Paris audiences loved it. A more conventional telling was waiting in the wings. In 1935 Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet commissioned a score from Sergei Proko fiev – then rejected for being, incredible as it now seems, undanceable. It was a Czech, Ivo Vana Psota, who choreographed the first ballet to today’s well-known music (Brno, 1938). In two scenes, the music came from two suites already arranged by Proko fiev. The first Juliet was Zora Semberova, later to become Flinders University’s revered teacher of movement, who died aged 99 in 2012. The earliest Russian version was Leonid Lavrovsky’s full-length work (Leningrad, 1940), which reached audiences worldwide through being filmed (1956), opening the floodgates for a constant stream of Romeo and Juliet ballets. Later well-known versions include those of Frederick Ashton (Copenhagen, 1955), John Cranko (Venice, 1958, revived for several companies, including the Australian Ballet in 1974), Kenneth MacMillan (London, 1965), now the most famous and in a notable coup mounted on Queensland Ballet in 1914; Rudolf Nureyev (London, 1977), a lush, rather messy production seen in Adelaide the same year, László Seregi (Budapest, 1985) and Jean- Christophe Maillot (Monte-Carlo, 1996). Australia has not been short on Romeo and Juliet ballets and the first was in many ways the most original. In 1951, Paul Grinwis, a Belgian dancer who had been recruited as a principal by Edouard Borovansky, created his first ballet, Les Amants Eternels ( The Eternal Lovers) to Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. The Borovansky company took classical ballet to Australian audiences intermittently from 1944 to 1960, and was the precursor of the Australian Ballet. Grinwis conceived his one-act work as a continuation of the story of two lovers, when they awake in an after-life. Its focal point was a struggle for the Lovers’ souls between Love and Death, Love, not unexpectedly, being victorious. The Eternal Lovers was the most artistically successful ballet created for the Borovansky company. The only original work produced in 1951 included in subsequent seasons; revised in 1954, it had its last performance in 1960. Barry Moreland made a selection of Renaissance music for his choreography for West Australian Ballet in 1965. Since then, several companies have produced not one but two versions, mostly following Shakespeare’s narrative closely, as did Harold Collins’s for Queensland Ballet in 1982, Ted Brandsen’s for West Australian Ballet (2000) and François Klaus’s for Queensland Ballet (2006). Graeme Murphy for the Australian Ballet (2011), seeking to universalise the story, set di fferent scenes in geographically wide-ranging places, ending with an arid central Australian landscape. So what can we expect from Stanton Welch and the Houston Ballet? First, a sharply de fined and clearly articulated dramatic performance. With 59 dancers, it is America’s fifth largest company, and is extremely well funded – the production has been paid for by just one oil-rich couple. The ravishing design, inspired by Renaissance paintings, is by Italian Roberta di Guidi di Bagno, who has previously designed the ballet for English National Ballet (2014). Scene changing will be smooth (décor is on wheels, not own), and contribute to the fluidity which distinguishes the choreography. Welch has a fertile originality; he has made 28 works for Houston and others for companies worldwide. Romeo and Juliet is his first Shakespearian ballet. Will he be tempted to create another? Houston Ballet Romeo and Juliet State Theatre, Melbourne Thursday, June 30 to Saturday, July 9 artscentremelbourne.com.au