In honor of our concert (in which we performed the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture!), here is the cast of R+J rendered in Chibi form!
I know towards the end some of the color schemes get hideous, I was running out of ideas for how to color the outfits because I wanted them all to look different. But I was running out of them by the time I reached Paris, so that poor guy's got an ugly outfit.
But I'm really happy with how all the others look, so huzzah!
So we watched this ballet to kind of help us get a good mental image for the pieces we're playing in orchestra, and we ended up getting really attached to it. I mean really, this is a totally awesome ballet.
First off, the music is pretty good. Not all of it is masterpiece-level, but a good much of it is! Stand outs are... The Dance of Knights; which we just covered in a post! This song is very oppressive, and mainly used as music during a ball at the Capulets, but it also reappears during some very tense fight scenes! Masks! This song is kinda goofy sounding, and it plays during a fun scene when Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio are sneaking into the Capulet's party! On a darker note, when Mercutio is fatally stabbed fighting Tybalt, a riff from Masks plays, but this time in a somber key. Before Parting. Omigosh, this piece!! This one has got to be my favorite song in the whole ballet, and plays during Romeo and Juliet's last pas de deux before he has to leave (this is after he kills Tybalt in a duel, and is subsequently banished). The strings sound like a rainfall, and it starts off with a very pretty little flute solo that repeats a few times, each with something slightly different. There is a really pretty viola solo, too! The pas de deux is closely followed by an amazing musical interlude that plays as Juliet makes up her mind to go to Friar Laurence and concoct a plan for her and her husband to stay together. This part is gorgeous, and has some really good brass action. In the suite, Before Parting and this Interlude are in the same track (as well as a later snippet that plays as Juliet contemplates and uses the potion), and it's amazing.
Aaaaanyway, I didn't think that I was a huge ballet fan, but I recently watched this one (obviously) and Swan Lake too, and I've come to really like some things about it. Like how much can be conveyed just through the combination of movement and music. There are is also at least one instance where the staging echoes the Shakespeare dialogue. At least in the staging we saw, I know there are two major choreographies for this ballet, and the one I'm talking about is the newer, more used one. Anyway, the way Mercutio's death was staged was so cool. Romeo and Tybalt end up on separate ends of the stage, with Mercutio in the middle. About to die from his wound, he struggles to keep his balance. He gestures violently towards Romeo, then towards Tybalt- as if to say "A plague 'o both your houses!", and then he collapses, dead. Chills, man. I got chills.
The following fight scene between Romeo and Tybalt was so incredibly tense. Romeo's actor was moving so fast, and swinging his sword with such raw fury and devastation- it was really good.
The Verdict: A
My only complaint with this magnificent adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy is that it ends with the suicide of Juliet, omitting the making of peace between the families. But as my sister pointed out, it would be super hard to do a talky scene like that in ballet pantomime style. So that's not even a huge issue. Prokofiev's score is wonderfully emotional and colorful. Listening to his other music, it seems that his dominant style is kind of wacky, but his quirky, modern style works well with the story and it comes to life. True, not all of the music is the same level of quality (sometimes it gets a bit random and weird), but the score, combined with the amazing choreography make this a really enjoyable ballet.
This is a selection of music from Sergei Prokofiev's ballet adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, which we're playing in orchestra this semester!
This particular piece of music plays during a ball at the Capulet's mansion. In the ballet, it's called Dance of the Knights, but in the suite of music taken from the ballet it's renamed Montagues and Capulets.
The opening is rather clashy and dissonant, but I think it makes for an interesting prologue to the main thing.
The music starts with a vicious, heavy theme that uses many dotted rhythms and feels very dark and oppressive. This obviously shows the strife and darkness caused by the pointless feud of the two families. Then, as Juliet enters the ball, a softer theme played by solo flutes and accompanied by a viola glissando. Later, a celesta joins in, and the violins play pianissimo broken chords. I always thought this theme was rather slinky sounding.
Later the heavy theme returns, but with different instrumentation, leading to the piece's close.
I really like all of the cool stuff for brass to do here! They sound so menacing and foreboding, very cool!
Warning: Ranting Lies Herein! Ranting of the good sort, not angry ranting though. :)
Okay, so we're playing this, and I'm really excited, because I've been wanting to play it for a while! What a coincidence!
So this piece actually a telling of the Romeo and Juliet story in and of itself, telling the story with music, rather than words. Sometimes I actually prefer listening to this to reading the play, because the sheer emotional scale of the music is overpowering to me. If you close your eyes, you feel absolutely enveloped in the music, and it goes through so many different emotions! There is a sense of nervous tension almost ever present (even during the famous love theme), and explosive anger and conflict. And there is, I think, a very palpable feeling of helplessness present at certain spots too. Starting around the 15:30 minute mark in the video, the anxious tone grows and grows, until the previously quiet and peaceful, but now soaring and lush love theme returns. This should be a joyful moment, but something in the music sends the message that something is very wrong. The immense timpani rolls make it feel like you're helplessly afloat on a stormy sea.
Of course, I have a rep for being very melodramatic, but hey! This is some of the most emotional music in the world, so I'm in my element here!
Anyway, we've talked about the emotional aspects, so now howabout more on the technical side. This piece has very good parts for pretty much everyone in the orchestra. The brass are totally righteous and can show off really well, the bassoon part actually, is really neato too! The part for violin sounds like so much work, it's very virtuosic. I mean, just listen to the more strife-y parts of the music, and you'll find yourself wondering how they're doing that! The Flute/Piccolo parts are considerably easier, but definitely not easy. There's a lot of coming in on the right beat, and runs fer dayz. But really, it's so much fun to play. The Flute/Piccolo parts are so beautiful (yeah, even the Piccolo gets in on the lovey dovey action!) and I find myself getting totally lost in the music. And that, my friends, is my favorite thing about Orchestra! Well, getting lost in the music, and the occasional free cake when the conductor's birthday lands on a rehearsal night. ;)
Just kidding, stay frosty, my friends!
Music actually starts around 2:00. :)
Next Up: La Mer: From Dawn to Midday on the Sea by Claude Debussy
Okay, so I'm not a super duper Ivory Tower snob, so I'm technically not allowed to have an opinion on any kind of Shakespeare, but here we go.
So far as Shakespeare goes, Henry V is still my favorite, but Romeo and Juliet is an extremely close second.
First, I'll explain my take on the two title characters romance. Okay, get your pitchforks and torches ready, because I don't think that they are the Paragon of True Love. I think they were impulsive and rushed things because of circumstance. I think that if their families hadn't been feuding, then they would have either gotten married eventually after getting to know each other, or they would've lost interest (similar to how Romeo quickly lost interest in Rosaline?) and started seeing other suitors.
That's the tragedy of it, if you ask me. It didn't have to be that way. This play made me really sad not because they were tragically star-crossed saints in love, but rather because they were impulsive kids who just wanted to be together and rushed into it without thinking of the consequences. [sniffle]
I liked the character development of the two. Romeo started out as an emo whiner but was sharpened into a determined young man; for better or worse. Well, worse.
Juliet is a typical ingénue, but also clever, and she actually keeps her head better than Romeo. And at the same time, she's totally your average girl. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath to say to me that thou are out of breath?
XD
The supporting characters were pretty good, too. I feel bad for Paris, I know a lot of productions demonize him for not being Romeo, but he seems to have a solid character, and I was pretty tensed up during the fight between him and Romeo. My favorite character was Mercutio, because even at death's door he's a total snarker. At first, I thought he was just being a drama queen, actually! Then it turns out he's really hurt. Ouch. That's when the play goes from Rom Com to straight up Tragedy, I think.
The Verdict: A-
This here is a Tragedy with very interesting characters, sword fights to balance out the love scenes, and actually a very satisfying ending! I read this to prepare the this orchestra semester where we will play the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture by Tchaikovsky! It's very pretty, and I think that now I understand the story, I'll be able to put that much more into performance.
