MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : A Tale of Two Juliets--One of Whom Triumphs

Only a great Juliet could redeem the numbing Moscow Classical Ballet production of “Romeo and Juliet,” presented this weekend at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Fortunately, just such a Juliet--Vera Timashova--danced the role at the Saturday matinee.

Timashova invested this Juliet with such poetic insight and intensity of feeling that she triumphed over the stultifying, at times grotesque proceedings.

It was not easy.

Company co-directors Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasiliov respond to the familiar Prokofiev score with consistent poverty of imagination, opting for neat, symmetrical groupings and hyperactive, Bolshoi-style gymnastics.

They seem to have invented a singularly unattractive signature style for the social dances--men with legs splayed, women with arms in bent semaphoric positions. One thinks of Olympic weightlifters preparing.

The choreographers hurtle through the plot, relying on Iosif Sumbatashvili’s dark-toned set and fly-away drops to speed action from bedroom to ballroom, from church to crypt; yet, they invent dubious scenes such as a comic interlude between a flirtatious Lord Capulet and a laundress.

They rarely allow poor Romeo and Juliet to be alone. The star-cross’d lovers must share the balcony scene with their families and a procession of white-robed monks. They can marry only after the two households leave a church service--another invented scene. They are fated to die in the presence of 22 hooded monks.

Kasatkina and Vasiliov also waffle with the tragic ending, elevating the deceased lovers in spiritual embrace above the survivors, “Swan Lake”-style.

Through it all, Timashova traced a detailed character--emerging from sweetness and wide-eyed shyness to a woman aware of the wonder and pain of love and fully alert to tragic dimensions. Technically, she fell a mite short of ideal expressivity, but clearly she is a dancer of significance.

Alexander Gorbatsevich was her introspective, poetic Romeo--lost and searching at the beginning, resolute at the end.

In comparison, the Friday cast--Galina Shlyapina as Juliet, Stanislav Isayev as Romeo--seemed merely two well-intentioned teen-agers on an adventure.

Shlyapina was high-spirited and outgoing, Isayev boyish and impulsive. They suggested that love could carry them through all eventualities, but neither captured the requisite sense of conflict and doom. Still, they managed the uninspired, interlocking-puzzle-piece pas de deux securely.

In other casting, Ilgiz Galimullin brought brooding intensity and sky-flying power to Tybalt; Vladimir Malakhov was a vital, springy, witty Mercutio.

Igor Terentiev proved a stolid, dramatically oblivious Paris, but partnered each Juliet strongly. Sergei Beloribkin was the ubiquitous Friar Laurence; Nina Osipian, the loyal Benvolio; Ludmilla Menshova, the practical nurse.

Viktor Kasatsky mastered the monster-like walk of the enraged Lord Capulet well enough. Svetlana Shakhotykina was a sympathetic Lady Capulet on Saturday; Timashova danced the role strongly on Friday. The corps coped bravely.

Alexei Vinogradov conducted the scrappy pit band stylishly.