Save now on Hit TV Comedies such as Married with Children, Community, King of Queens and many more. Offer ends May 31, 2013. |
Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Special Features
- Ballet synopsis
- History of Prokofiev's music
- Biographies of Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, and Sergei Prokofiev
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
Customer Reviews
This Royal Ballet version of Romeo and Juliet is so fine, so spectacular, so moving, and so incrediblly beautiful that in my opinion there is no other ballet that can compare with it. First there is the poignantly tragic love story of Shakespeare. Add to it the hauntingly expressive, classic-yet-modern music of Prokofiev. Stir in Kenneth MacMillan's sensitive and exuberant choreography. And as the supreme touch, have it danced by the most exhilarating male dancer who every performed, in partnership with the most delicate and vulnerable ballernina of the past century. Here you have the masterpiece of all masterpieces. A ballet that puts other ballets to shame with their weak plots and lack of emotional substance.
My two favorite scenes are the balcony scene, and the scene where Romeo dances with a lifeless Juliet. The first exudes love and passion, as Nureyev and Fonteyn are transported by their new-found love to a height beyond all measure. In the second, your heart freezes and you strain to hold back tears as Romeo tries to coax the life back into Juliet by dancing with her limp but still graceful form. There are no touchingly valid moments such as these in any other ballet I have seen.
The superb costumes are worthy of a Zefferelli production, although this is not one, of course. The scenery is adequate but not impressive. But most important, all the dancers communicate a vitality that is convincing and contagious. The swordplay is amazing in its complexity and realism. Tybolt's death and his wife's grief are overdone with just the right touch of modernity.
But mainly, Nureyev and Fonteyn bring each scene they dance into brilliant flower. And when they dance together something of the mystery and tragedy of their two very different lives comes to the surface and animates their performance, giving it a realism that communicates their deep emotion for each other.
This is heartfelt and heart-wrenching art. When it finishes, one is exhausted and drained, but also inspired and delighted that this one-of-a-kind performance was recorded so that one may enjoy it over and over again.
That said, I must confess to a great deal of frustration with this DVD. There was no effort made to re-master, as far as I can see. Also, as becomes obvious from the intro titles (with the edges chopped off), the coversion from PAL to NTSC was done haphazardly at best. In some scenes, dancers are partially cut-off from view, in others the frame speeds result in an almost jerky quality.
Czinner, like many others in the past, tried very hard to turn the ballet production into a movie production, and fails miserably at times. Close-ups are filmed when MacMillan's spectacular corps choreography is occurring, so you miss some wonderful dancing. Often, the effort to capture "drama" for the movie screen ends up detracting terribly. One day, somebody will figure out that the best way to film ballet is to simply plop your camera in the best seat in the house with a wide angle lens and let it run.
Would I purchase this again? Certainly. As a bit of history it has great value. However, I see no reason to spend the extra money on the DVD version -- it's no better than film, and the "extras" are nothing that you couldn't find elsewhere, and in a better format ("I am a Dancer", the VHS with Nureyev, comes to mind.) So save your DVD dollars and go for tape on this one.
MacMillan created his 'Romeo And Juliet' not for Nureyev and Fonteyn but for Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable, and Gable was bitterly disappointed when his role was given over to Nureyev who didn't hesitate to inject his own changes into the choreography. Nureyev was perfectly cast as a randy Renaissance playboy suddenly entranced by Juliet's demure girlish innocence so perfectly projected by Fonteyn. She was forty-six at the time yet through her dancing she transformed herself into a romantically inspired teenager. The experience of this in the theater was stunning, as one is not diverted by camera close-ups, but even in the film I find myself thoroughly convinced by her portrayal. Of all the ballets that Nureyev and Fonteyn danced together this one most perfectly captured the contrasts in their personas that made their partnership so unique. He has been described as "fire", she as "light", and the synergy between them was unforgetable in this ballet.
In his choreography MacMillan does a masterful job of characterizing Romeo who in the opening scene makes a play for Tybalt's girlfriend, Rosaline, dances in abandon with the harlots of the town, and then pursue Rosaline to the Capulet's ball. In contrast we meet Juliet playing with a doll in her anteroom and shying timidly away from her suitor, Paris. But at the ball Juliet plays the mandolin and Romeo, intruding himself, dances for her generating a spellbinding attraction between them that flowers into the balcony scene. Juliet gives herself to him, timidly at first but then freely in an exquisite pas-de-deux by which all subsequent performances by other dancers must be judged.
Czinner's film of this ballet is filled with memorable moments; Desmond Doyle's outstanding portrayal of the menacing; treacherous Tybalt; David Blair's rendition of Mercutio's death; Romeo and Juliet's parting pas-de-deux filled with tenderness, longing, and grief (Shakespeare's words, "Oh thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?" fill the moment). But of all it is perhaps the tomb scene that remains the most vivid.
Hearing of Juliet's death Romeo invades the Capulet's tomb, dispathes Paris, and mourns over Juliet's body. In Nureyev's lifts of Fonteyn's limp body he recreates a semblance of their balcony and bedroom trysts, pathetically trying to dance life into her once again, until overcome at last he takes poison and dies. Juliet awakens and now it is Fonteyn's turn to match Nureyev's sorrow and desperation as she realizes the tragic consequences of her failed plan. The poignancy of their deaths is so well realized the one felt a sense of relief when at last Rudi and Margo materialized before the curtain to take their tumultous curtain calls. This ballet is a perfect marriage of Prokofiev's sumptuous score, MacMillan's evocative choreography, the exquisite dancing of Nureyev and Fonteyn, and we are most fortunate to have it all preserved in Czinner's film, a "must own" for every lover of dance.
One might indeed believe that Rudi defected in June 1961 to dance with Margo but the truth is that he was about to be arrested by the KGB in Paris and sent back to Russia. He threw himself upon the mercy of the French police, escaped, danced with the Cuevas company in Paris, and then with the Royal Danish Ballet. He didn't dance with Fonteyn until February 1962.
Over-all a delight to anyone who loves ballet
Look for Similar Items by Category
- Movies & TV > TV
- Music > Classical
|
