“Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?”

While in Dresden, we were given the amazing opportunity to attend the dress rehearsal for the ballet “Romeo and Julia” at the Semperoper before it premiered. It was choreographed by Stijn Celis and the dancing was beautiful.

Last year, I performed in the play “Romeo and Juliet” at school playing the part of Juliet. I studied the story in class so I had a good understanding of what was happening on stage. It was easy for me to recognize the characters and the storyline.

The ballet was similar to our play because it had the same plot and characters but with little twists. There were also quite a few differences. The most prominent difference was there was no talking in the ballet so the dancers had to use their bodies and expressions to tell the story. They also used costuming to illustrate the roles of the characters.

The ladies in their costumes.

The cast onstage.

For example, my uncle Fabien played the role of Tybalt.  He wore a black suit with black gloves, which made him look very sinister. His character was evil and his expression showed you wouldn’t want to mess with him. As the character Tybalt, Fabien danced and carried himself in an aggressive manner and glared menacingly at the other characters. He had incredible stage presence and I’m not just saying that because we’re family:)

The music used for the ballet was played by a live orchestra. It is one of the world’s best orchestras, according to Fabien, and I would agree with him. Crescendos and diminuendos were used to heighten the dramatic effect of what was happening in the performance. The night before when we went to the Bella Figura ballet, there was no orchestra so the pit was covered over. It was amazing to see the transformation of the theatre in just one night. Furthermore, after the rehearsal, Carmen was playing that evening and the set for that opera was ready to be moved in as soon as the rehearsal had finished.

The orchestra pit

The set for “Carmen”.

When I see a performance I  know how much work is done to pull it all together. When we watched the dress rehearsal, we saw when the dancers got corrections from the director and stage manager. The orchestra used the rehearsal to make sure that they played at the right time for the dancers. There were only a few people in the audience so what we were witnessing was really unique.

Backstage

The audience from backstage.

A warm up room.

As a lover of theatre and performances, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the ballet. It was even better since I knew a member of the cast and I already had a great understanding of what was happening.  If you get the chance to see this ballet, I would highly encourage it as it is amazing.