THE "Romeo and Juliet" ballet, which was recently performed by Cairo Opera Ballet, is one of the treasures of the repertoire of this company. It was produced for the first time in the 1990s. The ballet was accompanied by the Cairo Opera Orchestra conducted by Nayer Nagui, and featured the stars and most members of Cairo Opera Ballet as this performance includes a considerable number of group dances. The ballet is based on the famous work of Shakespeare, and its dramatic potentials inspired several composers in the history of music such as Berlioz and Tchaikovsky. Prokofiev's treat-ment of the story is one of the most famous works in the world of dance and was used by many ballet choreographers.The ballet was premiered in Czechoslovakia in 1938. Arevised version was produced in 1940 by Kirov Company in Leningrad. The choreog-rapher of the first performance was Leonid Lavrovsky, whose choreography has become the most famous for this ballet. Abdel Moneim Kamel, the artistic supervisor, and the director of Cairo's performance used also the Lavrovsky's work as a basis for his choreography, in addition to some designs by John Cranko and Sir Kenneth MacMillan. Kamel added some of his own designs in the form of some extra dances, which were included in the ballet. The story of the ballet follows the main story-line of Shakespeare's work. Although Cairo's performance lacked some of the small dramatic details, it preserved the essence of the work and concentrated on the strife between Romeo's and Juliet's families. The ballet consists of 12 scenes in three acts.The opening scene, which accompanied the musical overture showed the main elements of the drama. The scenery designs were simple and sometimes abstract as it was the case in the balcony scene. The costumes designs, howev-er, were very rich especially in the group dances, which matched the beautiful and inten-sively rhythmic music. It was only hoped that the number of dancers in these group dances were larger, especially that the stage in the main hall in Cairo Opera House can accom-modate much more dancers. The dancers' performance was brilliant, especially in their expressive acting, which came in harmony with the movements and the dramatic storyline. The stars of the ballet, Romeo and Juliet (alternatively Ahmad Yehia and Zorab Mikelaze as Romeo, and Anja Achin and Olga Dirda as Juliet), were superb in their understanding of the characters and their high dance techniques, but due to the dra-matic and acting parts of this ballet, it would have been more convincing to choose younger dancers to play these roles. The stars of the Cairo Opera Ballet Sahar Helmy, Ragwa Hamed, Ahmad Nabil, Ahmad Saleh, Mamdouh Hassan, Omar Farouq, Maged Ahmad, and Rafeeq Abou Srea presented a stun-ning performance.Although this was the first time for Nayer Nagui to conduct this work, his interpretation was artistically acceptable, taking Prokofiev' demanding score into account the. The music expresses so many conflicting moods with var-ied shades ranging from dreamy romantic sec-tions to violent fiery ones. This is even clear in the leitmotifs used by Prokofiev for both Romeo and Juliet. The former (i.e. Romeo's) is vivid and fast, while the latter (i.e. Juliet's) is calm and tender. The conductor managed to keep the balance, and the balcony scene was a great example. The audience enjoyed the lyricism of this scene, although some very cute sounds from the woodwind section were mistakenly too loud and were about to cover the lyrical line in the strings. Nevertheless, the live music was one of the successful elements of Cairo's performance.The mise-en-scène of the ballet was beautiful and showed a thoughtful and creative use of the scenery, costumes, movements, and light com-bined. The clearest exposition of this was the final scene of the ballet, which was one of the most beautiful scenes. It was directed in a very special way where we saw Romeo committing suicide at the sight of his lover's body above her tomb inferring from what he saw that she was dead. When she woke up and found Rome dead next to her, she committed suicide as well.The movement of both Romeo and Juliet, and the variation in the light effects with their sym-bolic significance that echoed the lovers' emotions in this scene were very touching. This was strong finale of Shakespeare's drama rendered by innovative music, dance and stage direction. ([email protected])
