My night of "Romeo and Juliet"

I went to see Romeo and Juliet with three friends and it was a wonderful night. Prokofiev's music is very impressive and becomes the most important character in the ballet. He composed the work in 1938. I can hardly imagine such a pure art came from his years of being prosecuted. In his longing for love and truth, he created a work of art which went beyond his time, the ideology of his time, and himself.

Romeo and Juliet itself is a good evidence of the universal humanity, which you can find even in the darkest time in history. Prokofiev's life story reminded me about the film, "East, West". The composer's spanish wife in fact was executed by the USSR government for sending money to her monther in Spain. The harsh reality and the pursuit of beauty in music makes such a contrast that I can not help thinking it is the death and unavoidable tragedy that rule people's life, rather than love.

The female and male principal dancer are from Argentina and Brazil. They share a sense of control over their unleashed emotion which created a kind of elegence. Great performance, nothing to add.

New York Times' review http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/arts/dance/20rome.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin A glowingly handsome evocation of the Italian Renaissance, Kenneth MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet,” created for the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in 1965, long ago became the standard version of the ballet. It has proved itself a fluent mixture of dance and acting, absorbing in its response to both Shakespeare’s story and Prokofiev’s score.