Principals sparkle in BRB gem

ROMEO AND JULIET, LOWRY LYRIC, Salford

KENNETH MacMillan’s version of this magnificent modern ballet doesn’t come along very often, and when it does it’s a rare treat for ballet fans and music lovers alike.

The reasons are very simple: Prokofiev’s score, easily the greatest of the 20th century; MacMillan’s ability to pour the intensity of Shakespeare’s tragic romance into dance, and a Birmingham Royal Ballet production that is pretty much second to none.

Last at the Lowry in 2005, the work – originally from the Sixties, this production from the Nineties – simply doesn’t date, even to the extent, in this case, of having the same principal dancers as five years ago. And what a wonderful pair of principals they are: Japanese Nao Sakuma and Chinese Chi Cao put all the confidence of having danced the role many times into their performances, with great, easy watchability the result.

Sakuma, slight to the point of frailty, is marvellously teenage as the young Juliet; bright and lively when we first see her. But her whole appearance is more mature after her secret marriage to Romeo, as if she bears the weight of the world and can hardly conceal her distress at the enforced relationship with Paris (Tyrone Singleton).

Chi Cao is Sakuma’s perfect partner: little taller than her but strong and lithe, able to lift her almost without thinking. After he finds her apparently dead in the crypt there is a remarkable sequence in which he dances with Sakuma’s dead weight, the result barely less elegant than when both are dancing at full stretch.

In their big pas de deux in the final act, the couple dance with great intensity and beauty, apparently borne aloft on the Royal Ballet Sinfonia’s sumptuous playing (under conductor Paul Murphy) of Prokofiev’s lyrical music.

Elsewhere, the production continues to offer great pleasure, from the playfulness of Alexander Campbell as Mercutio and the cold malevolence of Robert Parker as Tybalt to the devil-may-care attitude of the street girls and a wonderful absence of formality in the corps de ballet. Strongly recommended.