Making a welcome return to the Melbourne stage after only four years, John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet consolidates its position as a treasured favourite of dancers and audiences alike. Staged for this season by Yseult Lendvai and Mark Kay, the performance is brimming with youthful joy, all too brutally offset by the weight of tragedy. Festival scenes are joyously buoyant, the Capulet Ball is ostentatiously splendid, and sword fighting is thrillingly visceral. The sumptuous revival grandly fills the Regent Theatre, the handsome scenic design of Jürgen Rose amply filling the space. Smooth transitions between multiple scenes and settings gives a comparable sense of spectacle to the best Broadway-style productions seen at the the same theatre. While it must be noted that floorspace for the Capulet Ball is a little cramped, all other scenes have abundant room to breathe. Guest conductor Jessica Gethin (Principal Conductor of the West Australian Ballet) makes the strongest possible…
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