The star-cross’d lovers have inspired many choreographers. Frederick Ashton’s 1955 version was rejected by Ninette de Valois, because she didn’t want two Prokofiev ballets in the repertoire. So he offered it to the Royal Danish Ballet. It hasn’t been seen in London in twenty years. Those who know and like Kenneth Macmillan’s sumptuous and spectacular grandeur are likely to be disappointed by Ashton’s diluted, small-scale interpretation and even more so with its unexpectedly perfunctory climax.
The lack of scenery is not compensated for by boring black and white snapshots of Verona and its environs. The stage always looks very empty. Hardly anybody comes to the Capulet’s ball. Perhaps the invitations got lost in the post. The vertical strip lightings which flank the sides of the stage are out of period and incongruous. The lighting, generally, is so poor that it looks as if somebody has not paid the electricity bill.
The strength of Ashton’s understated and lyrical choreography is the precise story-line which concentrates on the lovers. Nobody will be any doubt that the young and gifted stars of the Bolshoi, the girly, fleet-of-foot Natalia Osipova and the rugged Ivan Vasiliev, a high-powered jumper, are in love. The intimacy is passionate and the despair is real. Prokofiev is, as always, thrilling; and an added bonus is the strong characterisations of Mercutio, Tybalt and Friar Laurence by Alban Lendorf, Johan Christensen and Peter Schaufuss.