Emotions in full flow: Henrik Erikson and Mackenzie Brown in Stuttgart Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet

Opera House, Stuttgart
July 14, 2024

If there is a better classical ballet Romeo and Juliet than John Cranko’s, I have yet to see it (and yes, I include Kenneth MacMillan’s in that). From the appealing opening picture of Verona waking up, it is full of life.

Jürgen Rose’s superb designs play a major part in its success. When the sun comes up over the city, the scene is bright. You can feel the warmth as the marketplace bustles with people hawking their wares. You also see that the dawn is accompanied by a red sky. A portent surely.

That street scene, with its raised walkways, transforms smoothly into the Capulet residence. The ballroom is darker, but a clever touch is how Rose allows us to see through into rooms at the back. The black and gold suits and dresses of the guests are magnificent, as are their lines and rows for the grand but graceful Dance of the Knights, although you can’t help wondering why no-one other than Tybalt spotted Romeo and friends for who they are in their rather different red and black.

But what of our star-crossed lovers? Mackenzie Brown is a terrific Juliet. Early, she danced gleeful and with all the innocence of a 14-year-old on receiving a new dress from her mother. Later, there was a nice sense of indifference when introduced to Paris, danced by Christopher Kunzelmann. However hard he tries to play the would-be lover, you just know that underneath he’s formal and cool. The way he later accepts being turned down suggests a man not exactly brimming with emotion.

Henrik Erikson’s Romeo is youthful and fresh. Full of confidence but not brash. By the time of the ball, he and friends Mercutio (Ciro Ernesto Mansilla) and Benvolio (Edoardo Sartori) have already had one dance highlight: the pas de trois outside the Montague residence. It’s a feast of leaps and turns, and so many tours en l’air from all three that you lose count. All were performed perfectly.

Cranko sets the balcony scene is set up wonderfully. Rose’s balcony is not that as such, and not outside Juliet’s bedroom, but instead a raised walkway in the garden. She looks at the moon, no doubt thinking back on the events of the ball, then smells a flower on a bush. Then, in a neat twist from the usual, it’s not Romeo who initially hides from her, but she, behind that same bush, from him.

Romeo’s helping Juliet down, there being no steps, raised a smile. Once together, there was no hiding emotions. Cranko’s pas de deux may not have quite the same dramatic highs of MacMillan’s but it still very much shows us two young people who have just discovered love, whose hearts are racing, and who let their feelings explode. Cranko’s choreography demands a high level of realism, something altogether more natural, however.

Brown and Erikson delivered in spades, smiling broadly. The impossible hadn’t just become possible, it was happening for real. Brown’s Juliet seemed to surf the waves of emotion that were flooding through her body, in particular. Together they showed a lightness of spirit that makes the end, which we all know is coming, so tragic.

In Act 2, the fight between Mercutio and Adrian Oldenburger’s nicely simmering Tybalt, a man looking for any opportunity to get even with Romeo, then Romeo and Tybalt’s clashing swords following Mercutio’s death, were both well done. Cranko leaves us with no doubt that Romeo considers himself responsible for his friend’s death.

The ensemble threw themselves into their roles too, making the town scenes fizz with life. The carnival dancer quartet of Fabio Adoriso, Minji Nam, Martina Marin and Anton Tcherny provided yet another splash of colour and some comic relief.

In Act 3, the funeral procession and lowering of Juliet’s body into the crypt is magnificent, the lowering of her body into the crypt making yet more use of that raised walkway. The final denouement was heartbreaking, although Brown’s audible scream was the one unconvincing moment of the performance. How much better it would be if silent.

But it really was a truly great evening, a Romeo and Juliet that really tugged at all the emotions. And a performance that, after the joy of the John Cranko School Matinée earlier, made a wonderful day complete.

Following the performance, Edoardo Sartori was presented with the Birgit Keil Prize 2024. Awarded every two years by the Birgit Keil Foundation, and endowed with €10,000, it goes to a promising young dance talent who, while still early in their career, is already attracting attention for outstanding performances.