Romeo and Juliet ballet- review/experience

As an early 18th birthday present my lovely grandparents brought me tickets to see the 50th anniversary performance of Romeo and Juliet by the Royal ballet in London's Royal Opera house theatre.

The Royal Opera House

mum and i 

The ballet was originally first performed over here by the Bolshoi ballet, more recently performed by the Royal Ballet the Shakespeare classic has been loved and enjoyed as a ballet since the 20th century.
I personally was incredibly excited to see this performance because it was the first performance by the Royal Ballet that I have seen live at the Royal Opera. I’ve also never seen Romeo and Juliet as a ballet, although I’m very familiar with the classic tragedy.
I wasn’t disappointed by any stretch of the imagination the performance was enchanting mainly because the storytelling was so strongly given, each movement has a meaning and a purpose, you’re not just doing a movement you’re feeling the emotion through it. Which is why I love ballet so much, people don’t always realise it but ballet is just as much about acting as it is dance, and to be honest I hadn’t registered this in my mind until fairly recently.

Romeo and Juliet, balcony scene

I greatly admire them for bringing the classical ballet, with all its skill and beauty into todays society (which really they are trained to do), however, I say this because in today’s society not enough emotion is put into the movement, its often forgotten by performers and it marks the style as being very dull and emotionless which it isn’t by any stretch of the imagination. Without an emotion or story ballet is not ballet it becomes gymnastics.
Unfortunately my mind isn’t as naïve as it used to be I did pick out some very minor criticisms from the ballet, which is purely just little details such as Romeo pausing briefly before picking up Juliet in their first lift causing the routine to not flow quite as it should, I like to believe this is a fluke of the performance I saw.
Another minor detail was watching Romeo and his two friends pirouetting and their legs were all slightly off in different directions which looked a little messy, the unison was only ever so slightly out so again it could have just been fluke of that performance.

Romeo refuses to fight Tybalt

The performance  brought a lot of the theatrical Shakespeare side making the audience laugh at certain points, which I’ve never experienced with ballet before because the story doesn’t tend to have a comical aspect to it! I felt captured into the story; at the beginning I felt fickle minded of Romeo and  sorry for Paris, which changed later in the play when we saw a darker side to Paris forcing Juliet to love him, which i don’t remember reading in the play, but it made my pity turn to dislike. For me that really just goes to show I was drawn into the story.

Romeo and Juliet: final science

 There was also beautiful use of fluidity and  weight firstly on Juliet and Paris’s first duet but also later on when charters die, they mastered the art of creating realistic and believable falls, and faints as if they were as light as a feather.
 they were also largely believable at being dead, laying lifelessly on the stage only to be dragged like a rage doll into a heap or off stage.
A particular thing I must mention is the sheer flawlessness and professionalism of the dancers in chorus who didn’t get applauded at the end, much to my dismay. When you do get a " minor role" in a performance it usually knocks your confidence but professionally you should put your heart and soul into every role you get, because although you are not the focus you are delivering a performance, I as an audience member should be able to look anywhere on stage at any time and the story and theme is held and told through every character. I feel that the chorus roles did an amazing job and in honest some parts I enjoyed more from them than the principle dancers.

Overall I really enjoyed the performance the storytelling was amazing, and the overall composition was really enjoyable and it reminded me of some highly important morals to remember as a dancer or performer.