 | REPERTOIRE Romeo
& Juliet
|
(open pop up)Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Choreography: Nacho Duato
General concept of costumes, scenography, and lighting: Nacho Duato
Costumes: Lourdes Frías
Scenography: Carles Pujol and Pau Rueda (Centre Cultural Sant Cugat)
Light Design: Nicolás Fischtel (A.A.I.) (based on the work of Miguel Ángel Camacho)
Premiere by the Compañía Nacional de Danza at the Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria, Santander, January 8th, 1998.
Romeo and Juliet is
the first full-length ballet
by Compañía Nacional
de Danza. The piece is divided
in two acts, based on Prokofiev's
music and with the choreography
of its Artistic Director, Nacho
Duato. The choreography has been
designed faithfully respecting
Shakespeare's drama. The thirty
dancers who compose the Compañía's
cast will perform this new creation.
The general concept of the work,
in terms of scenography, costumes,
lighting and, of course, choreography,
is Nacho Duato's original idea.
For this work, he has been able
to count on several assistants,
including: Lourdes Frías,
for costume design, Pablo Rueda
and Carles Pujol of the Centre
Cultural Sant Cugat, for the design
and carrying out of the choreography,
and Nicolás Fischtel for
light design.
Romeo and Juliet is,
doubtlessly, a challenge for Duato
as a choreographer, as well as
for all those involved in its staging.
Mar Baudesson and Kim McCarthy
will head the cast as Juliet and
Romeo, respectively. The rest of
the cast will involve all of the
Compañía's dancers.
This is the first ballet in two
acts created by Nacho Duato. As
he himself admits, the idea of
creating a ballet based on this
work of Shakespeare's has been
in his mind for many years. But
it is now, in his maturity
as a creator, and counting on
the members of the Compañía
Nacional de Danza's cast, who are
perfectly in harmony with his artistic
line, when he has decided to take
this important step in his career
as a choreographer.
Prokofiev was commissioned to
write Romeo and Juliet by
the Bolshoi in 1934. The score
was completed by the Autumn of
1935 but several difficulties arose
and the staging of the ballet was
postponed. Finally, Prokofiev's
score was converted into a ballet
for the first time in Brno, then
Czechoslovakia, with Viania Psota's
choreography, in December 1938,
while the Kirov staged it for the
first time somewhat later, on the
11th January, 1940, with Leonid
Lavrosvsky's choreography. In later
years, the ballet's popularity
increased irresistibly and was
incorporated into the repertoire
of all, or practically all, Soviet
companies.
Romeo and Juliet's story has been treated by many
famous choreographers, even without
Prokofiev's music. In Duato's case,
he attempts a more humanistic approach
to the story of the lovers of Verona,
bringing it somehow closer- always
through movement- to present-day
men and women. The complexity of
the drama lived by the main characters
of Shakespeare's tragedy, the whirlwind
of ideas and passions, as well
as the intensity of feelings, require
the ballet to encompass a subtle
fusion of choreographical and theatrical
languages, giving, as a result,
a representation where the characters,
emotion and passion are expressed
by the ballet dancer's body movements.
Duato's work, therefore, focuses
on the expression of Shakespeare's
romantic drama through dance in
its own right and tries to discard
all superfluous elements which
could relegate to a second place
what has always been his priority:
expression through movement. This
translates into a direct and human
language, thus rapidly creating
feeling around the story, progressing
in crescendo upto its tragic
ending.
For Duato, this version of Romeo
and Juliet ought not
to remain simply in the particular
story of the lovers of Verona,
but rather he wishes to point
out to the spectator something
more universal, which was always
there in Shakespeare's drama:
the story that tells us how passion
and love can prevail over terrible
obstacles, overcoming the barriers
of hatred and incomprehension
which frequently separate human
beings. It is therefore a story
for all seasons which has something
to say to present- day men and
women about their reality.
