KEY POINTS:
This Romeo and Juliet, minted in 2003 by Christopher Hampson for the Royal New Zealand Ballet in its 50th jubilee year, was a triumph here and in England, where it received a Laurence Olivier nomination for Best New Dance Production.
It surpasses itself in this return season. Tracy Grant Lord's design is dramatically riveting. The huge set of flat planes and hard surfaces revolves between black and white, symbolic of the light but mostly dark sides of life in feud-worn Verona, watched over by a huge and pock-marked moon.
Costumes, in spivvy 50s Italian high fashion style are also mostly dark, white for the innocence of Romeo and Juliet, then slashed with flashes of scarlet that sing of direst passion and the spilling of blood.
There is the grand music and the Auckland Philharmonia does Prokofiev proud.
Jo Funaki's Mercutio and Jacob Chown's Benvolio drew accolades on opening night and a good-natured booing for Brendan Bradshaw's Paris, after a refined and controlled performance, reflected the power of the story telling.
The brawling scenes, aflash with knifes and brutal with baseball bats, are chilling. The drama of the big ballroom scene, to the most familiar and foreboding passage of the score, is superb. Subplots and undercurrents play out lucidly. The company dances extremely well.
Then there is the brilliance of the stars, Amy Hollingsworth as Juliet, and Cameron McMillan as her Romeo. Hollingsworth is at the height of her powers, and that power might seem initially at odds with the expectation of a nubile, perhaps childlike Juliet. But there is no discrepancy, in fact it makes far more sense, as she develops her feisty and passionate Juliet, as self determining as it is possible to be under the vengeful circumstances.
Sheer talent prevails. There are moments when a performance pierces all the senses with its magic. Hollingsworth, perfectly matched by McMillan, does just that in the balcony duet at the end of the first act.
She is pointe perfect in her technique, so powerful she holds the whole auditorium on the flutter of her breath, each movement of her lean-to-the-extreme body speaking volumes.
Never was a story of so much woe so beautifully danced with such intelligence and passion.
