Lavrovsky’s Legacy

In the summer of 1955, choreographer Frederick Ashton was invited to London’s Soviet Embassy for a private film viewing. Recognised by his Russian hosts as a creative figurehead of British ballet, Ashton was to find himself, unwittingly, the plum political target of artistic chastening. Fresh from minting a chamber production of Romeo and Juliet for the Royal Danish Ballet, Ashton was ushered in to watch a film that would ultimately transform the Western ballet landscape: Leonid Lavrovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.

Directed for film by Lev Arnshtam and starring the Bolshoi Ballet, Lavrovsky’s dance epic was a breathtaking amalgam of vast outdoor fight scenes and dreamy pas de deux, bacchanale merriment and moody architectural vistas.

Nominated [in 1955] for the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, the Palme d’Or, alongside Australian film classic Jedda, Arnshtam’s film, screened publicly in London the following year, ahead of the Bolshoi’s eagerly anticipated 1956 tour. For British balletomanes cut off from Russian dance by the Iron Curtain, the film was a tantalising introduction to Soviet drambalet. When the Bolshoi Ballet finally arrived at London’s Royal Opera House to perform Lavrovsky’s version, anticipation was such that dancers from the Sadler’s Wells Ballet slipped into the Opera House to watch them grind  through an all-night, eighteen-hour rehearsal. Hours later, Romeo and Juliet was revealed in all its glory, graced by Galina Ulanova and Yuri Zhdanov, who reprised their onscreen roles as the star-crossed lovers.

Lavrovsky’s vision electrified its western audience. Mary Clarke, writing for The Dancing Times, described every sequence as “a part of the whole beautiful, wonderful complete realization of Shakespeare’s play.” Critic A. V. Coton announced: “We were aware of watching the results of a completely new conception of ballet.” 

Distinguished by its fleshed-out character arcs and Lavrovsky’s close attention to every moment of the dancers’ interactions, Romeo and Juliet was a world away from decorative fairytale classics like Swan Lake or Ashton’s recent Cinderella. For South African-born John Cranko and his contemporary Kenneth MacMillan, it was the template for a new approach: the one-act ‘psychological’ ballet upscaled to an evening-length work.

The creation of their own versions of Romeo and Juliet would prove career-defining for both Cranko and MacMillan. Riffing off Lavrovsky’s blueprint, both conceived relatable human dramas with meticulous interweaving of pantomime, character and classical dance.

Cranko’s ballet, choreographed for Stuttgart Ballet in 1964 and first danced by The Australian Ballet a decade later, gleams with small, pearlescent details borrowed from Lavrovsky: the dying Mercutio strums his rapier in forlorn musical jest; Juliet signs the dawning of adult’s arrival by placing her hands on her breasts; Capulet and Montague wield ancient family swords; Romeo raises Juliet kneeling to his chest in a lift conceived by Lavrovsky for their meeting and transposed by Cranko to their wedding scene.

Cranko, of course, adds innovations of his own, like the three street dancers, who MacMillan borrowed for the Royal Ballet’s 1965 production. Cranko also eschews – and MacMillan likewise – the heroic style of Lavrovsky’s choreography to emphasise the leaner athleticism and conspicuous flexibility of his generation. For both Cranko and MacMillan, Romeo and Juliet was an important pathway to their future masterworks. Without Lavrovsky’s influence, we may never have had Cranko’s Onegin or The Taming of the Shrew or experienced MacMillan’s Manon and Mayerling, all of which owe their origins to a benchmark set by Lavrovsky for complex, narrative-driven storytelling through dance.