Post by Gargleblaster on Aug 15, 2019 14:22:09 GMT
Romeo and Juliet was not what I expected. "The Greatest Love Story Ever Told" as it is often called but not according to Matthew Bourne.
Prokofiev's score is so evocative and I had not expected it to be rearranged and re-scored that ended up being played by a 15 piece band that included synthsizers. Nor had I expected it to be so loud. To do this to one of the greatest ballet scores of the 19th century is sheer sacrilidge. The "Dance of the Knights" (The music used for "Dragon's Den") was picked out and played more than once.
I have enjoyed other Bourne works but this one I will give a miss if it ever comes around again.
You probably heard that Bourne auditioned more than a thousand hopefuls and in the end whittled it down to about 20.
I make no comment about the dancers who were equally talented but Bourne's choregraphy seemed to me sigularly lacking in ideas. For my mind there was far too too much rolling around on the floor and standing almost motionless. Bourne's choreography was not one could call subtle.
The scenery was sparse:
The ballet appears to be set within the confines of a psychiatric hospital.
I'm afrad to say that I'm a bit of a traditionalist. When I saw "Cinderella" and the RAH a short time ago and I missd the Fairy Godmother, I missed the coach drawn by mice, I missed Cinderella appearing in a beautiful ballgown etc.
Juliet was apparently raped by one of the Hospital's staff but that wasn't shown onstage.
To my mind you don't mess around with Shakespeare. Yes, I know that Bernstein and Sondheim did it with "West Side Story" but at least that kept to the story. Not to do so makes for confusion. I had to make wild guesses as to who was who.
Another thing, ballet is ballet and should be able to be comprehended by everyone without the use of sound effects. The "orchestra" joined in that too at one point when the players clapped.
A friend of mine also saw it and wrote to me:
"I went to Sadler's Wells last night but left before the end... As I suspected, it was a music and movement moment. Music from Chainsaw sounds to Beethoven Midnight Sonata to Beatles in the same piece. I nodded off at one point and when I opened my eyes there was no-one on the stage at all.
Nothing to it apart from bodies moving about and doing strange things!!! I left before the end but the glitterati, conoscenti who wafted in clapped..... I'm looking forward to the critics proving me totally wrong!
All of the reviews I have seen have given it four or five star reviews:
I still have to see "The Red Shoes" but that's on the 3rd of December. I just hope that Matthew Bourne doesn't mess that up too.