Dance Review, Janice Berman

BEAUTY AND DEATH FROM THE KIROV

The Kirov Ballet’s production of «Romeo and Juliet» goes way back, as its first-act backdrop, depicting a harbor in Verona, attests; it dates from the 1941 premiere. Similarly, the rest of the scenery, by Pyotr Williams, who also did the costumes, seems to have a patina of age, dark and yet glowing.

Which is how the entire production feels. Choreographed by Leonid Lavrovsky and slightly streamlined by artistic director Oleg Vinogradov (he’s ditched the tableau-vivant prologue), this «Romeo and Juliet» rumbles forward in heartening fashion, fueled, of course, by Sergei Prokofiev’s doom-laden score, nicely rendered Thursday night by the Kirov’s orchestra conducted by Boris Gruzin.

An exceptional cast, led by Nina Ananiashvili and Andris Liepa - both on loan from the Bolshoi Ballet - in the title roles, made the first New York performance a triumph. Ananiashvili’s still-coltish physique, her space-gobbling jetes, sweeping extensions and confident turns made the most of Juliet’s dances. Equally important was her ability to bring to the role the sense of desperation, the knowledge that her love for Romeo carries with it, right from the start, the seeds of their mutual destruction. It’s all there in her eyes, in her upturned hands. She and Liepa, singly and together, stirringly convey the lovers' anguish.

Liepa has matured wonderfully as an artist since his guest stint several years ago with American Ballet Theater, where he danced Romeo in Kenneth MacMillan’s version.

Audiences accustomed to the MacMillan Romeo and Juliet will find that, although the Englishman’s choreography is at times more intriguing than the Russian’s, it is Lavrovsky who has maintained an emotional arc and created more complete, more engaging characters.

MacMillan Choreographed a more interesting reveling-townfolk scene. He also gave Romeo’s pal Mercutio slightly more intricate pyrotechnics, but Lavrovsky’s death scene for Mercutio has more of a flow of emotion between him and Romeo. In the Kirov’s performance, the buoyant Massimilliano Guerra expired with just the right mixture of gallantry and pathos. Dmitry Korneev’s Tybalt was terrifically malevolent, embodying a certain heavy - metal insolence, and Makhar Vaziev was a properly bland Paris, Juliet’s rejected fiancee.

It is the last scene, at the cemetery, that makes Lavrovsky’s version the real winner. A mournful procession, illuminated by stars and candles, brings Juliet’s shrouded form to the vault, where the final suicide sequence unfolds. This combination of death and beauty has been present throughout the ballet, steady as the minor key of the music, and its final embodiment is masterly...