Dance about first love

The tour of the ballet of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein has begun in Moscow

The theater, based in Düsseldorf and periodically showing performances in Duisburg, came to us with three performances - a full-length Romeo and Juliet was shown over the weekend, two one-act plays (The Rite of Spring and Erda) will be performed on Wednesday and Thursday . The tour of the troupe, led by Yuri Vamos for more than ten years, takes place as part of the festival of contemporary German choreography, which was invented jointly by the Moscow Musical Theater and the Goethe Institute. This festival is methodical and consistent - after the extreme modern dances of the Sasha Waltz theater and the choreography of John Neumeier, written in eternity from birth, we are presented with the standard working production of one of the standard troupes.

This is a high-quality product, well-made, and intelligible. “Romeo and Juliet” in Yuri Vamos’s version cannot be called something revolutionary (although the fact that the ballerina is not dancing on pointe shoes is already a sign of daring avant-gardeism for our viewers, and the lady sitting next to me assured her young daughter that they were watching modern dance ), but there is no old-fashionedness in it either. Conscious references to the performance of Leonid Lavrovsky, imprinted in all balletomanic minds, are present, but only as references, polite bows to the “founder”.

Vamos moved the action of “Romeo and Juliet” to the thirties of the twentieth century, because Prokofiev wrote this music then, and, according to the choreographer, it very much reflected the time. The thirties in Italy have long been a fascist era, but there are no hints of this circumstance on stage. The two equally respected families in this performance are mafia families, but there is no external world suffering from bandits; the knife strapped to the shoulder is just a costume detail. Everyone belongs to the mafia, and this is as commonplace as the fact that all residents of Soviet villages were collective farmers. It is not very clear, however, whether the Duke in charge of Verona has become the most important godfather or he still represents Mussolini's power - he drives onto the stage at the back in a black car and never leaves the car, everyone comes up to him to bow and then runs carry out his orders.

The story of Romeo and Juliet in Vamos is written into these circumstances, but it could be written into any others, it doesn’t matter. Because the choreographer is not very interested in the feud between families - even in the finale he leaves the heroes alone in the crypt, and does not bring the families to “make peace.” He is only interested in these eccentric youths who have decided that their love is the most important thing in the world.

And Vamos’s main success is that he managed to convey this feeling of first love. When lovers seem absurd and funny to others, but they themselves don’t care about the opinions of all the “spectators.” And the angular girl Juliet (Suzanne Kaitz), waving her arms widely, every now and then pressing her head into her shoulders (one can immediately imagine how her mother must instill in her that a girl should have a noble posture and a quiet gesture) and, after taking a sleeping pill, thinking about how to lie gracefully on the bed in order to look more touching in “death”, she was a real Juliet. And the rustic Romeo (Michal Matys), crawling on all fours along Juliet’s balcony, was a real Romeo. Because in dreams, this Juliet flew over the stage enthusiastically and wildly, and Romeo, before meeting the girl in her bedroom, rushed and waltzed with an imaginary partner, as if he was saying what he had to tell her, getting confused in the “words” and starting again and again

Vamos in his performance sometimes falls short of the “threatening” episodes - for example, the “dance with pillows,” a traditional demonstration of the power of one of the clans, turned into almost a ballroom dance competition, but perhaps this is just my habit of Soviet performances by Leonid Lavrovsky and Yuri Grigorovich, where something is different, but the directors showed the oppressive power of power with knowledge and taste. But everything connected with the main characters does not raise any questions, and even the final scene, where, without any pathos and plastic “screams,” Juliet settles into the arms of the dead Romeo, quietly runs a knife along a vein and throws her beloved’s hand on her chest, clearly in the way they fell asleep together, the performance was simply exemplary. Then there is silence.

Anna GORDEEVA