Mariinsky Ballet's Romeo and Juliet, Royal Opera House

This Romeo and Juliet is “the Russian one”, the first realisation of Prokofiev’s fabulous score, premiered in 1940 with choreography by Leonid Lavrovsky .

It paints the drama with a broader brush than the later version by Kenneth MacMillan, more familiar to Royal Ballet audiences. 

Lavrovsky, choreographing in Soviet Russia, highlights the formal framework of the Renaissance society that shapes the story of the star-crossed lovers, allowing less scope for psychological nuance.

The raw emotion is powerful, though, the story clearly and pacily told, and the starlit final scene unforgettable.

Romeo and Juliet is the opener for this year's Mariinsky season in London; and the choice of  a 2 0th-century ballet rather than a 19th-century warhorse is a symptom of the changes  — mostly positive — that have swept through the St Petersburg company in recent years.