Moscow City Ballet in Romeo and Juliet Review
Moscow State Ballet in
Romeo and Juliet
St George’s Hall, Bradford
12-13 January 2014
Reviewed by Rachel Legg
I went to see The Moscow City Ballet performing Romeo and Juliet at St George’s Hall in Bradford, I will admit from the start I have never seen a classical ballet before but it was something that I have wanted to do for a long time. I was really pleased to be asked to review this performance as being familiar with the Shakespeare I felt that I’d find it easier to follow the characters and the story. We arrived in Bradford and parked up at the leisure exchange and then dodged the torrential rain on the short walk to the theatre, and picked up our tickets from the box office. As we were early we decided to have a quick drink in the bar and ordered our interval drinks while we were there and then went through to find our seats. St George’s Hall is a decent venue though getting tired, but the stalls are not tiered and it does not have an orchestra pit which meant that the orchestra were directly in front of us and even though we were sat fairly near to the front just off to the side we had quite a restricted view of any of the ballet happening at floor level, unfortunately this meant we couldn’t see any of the final scene.
The ballet itself was set in 3 acts which meant there were 2 intervals in the performance, though you would not have been aware of this unless you purchased the programme at £7. The performance overall was really enjoyable Prokofiev’s music is beautiful and the costumes and dancers were very good. Talgat Kozhabayev dancing Romeo was really good and a pleasure to watch, I also thought the group of dancers playing Mercutio, Benvolio and Romeo’s other friends were excellent and they brought a real light hearted element to the performance with both dance and acting skills. Kanat Nadyrbek who danced Tybalt however stole the show, he was really excellent with a real stage presence and was a scene stealer. Unfortunately I was less taken with Juliet, Yuliya Zhuravleva performed the duets with Romeo excellently and was really good in the 3rdact, she dances the tragic parts really well however I felt that she was struggling to portray the young innocent Juliet in the first act and subsequently she wasn’t convincing and this also seemed to be the general opinion of the audience.
Overall I did really enjoy the evening and would go see the ballet again.
Rating: 4/5
Tickets cost from £17.50 to £30.00 (plus transaction fee).
For more information or to book tickets click here.
