★★★★☆
Inspired, no doubt, by the success of Christopher Wheeldon’s two full-length ballets (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale) and Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works, Royal Ballet director Kevin O’Hare decided to steam ahead with his plans for more story ballets at Covent Garden. Hence this latest world premiere, a three-act dance adaptation of Mary Shelley’s great gothic tale, created by the house choreographer Liam Scarlett.
For the biggest commission of his career, Scarlett has opted for a very conventional staging — some might even say old-fashioned — that eschews the traditional horror-show clichés of old. The ballet is plot-rich, with a lucid narrative and a wealth of acting opportunities, though I do recommend you read the synopsis in the free cast sheet first. It’s also luxurious to look at, courtesy of grand designs by John Macfarlane that take us from the Frankensteins’ elegant Geneva manor house to Ingolstadt University and back again. Macfarlane’s gorgeous costumes, evoking late 18th-century fashions, are lit in a painterly way by David Finn and we have a new score from the American composer Lowell Liebermann that’s saturated with atmosphere and an undercurrent of unease even in its more romantic moments.
Scarlett’s meticulous approach, however, means that the narrative is often sluggish, especially in a well-padded first act that tells us more than we need to know. We could easily live without the backstory (and childhood flashbacks) for Victor Frankenstein and his love interest Elizabeth, and some of the scenes — such as those in the cemetery and the tavern — feel like pointless hand-me-downs from the Kenneth MacMillan repertoire. Perhaps if Scarlett had spent less time on the margins of his story he could have spent more time developing his Creature, who was created by Victor and then cruelly rejected by him, thus sparking an inexorable homicidal rage from a monster suffering the pain of an abandoned human child.
Still, the high points of the drama are either terrific fun, such as the Creature’s birth in an anatomy theatre, with the snap and crackle of a sinister mechanical contraption lighting up the Opera House stage, or emotionally affecting, such as the terrible murder of William, Victor’s younger brother, or downright Dexter, such as the gleeful climactic killing spree. Throughout, Scarlett’s choreography is classically adept and occasionally inspired, especially the love duets for Victor and Elizabeth, which give the dancers a chance to shine.
On opening night those roles were taken by Federico Bonelli and Laura Morera. As Victor, Bonelli journeys heroically from romantic joy to grief, guilt, madness and despair. As Elizabeth, Morera brings personality and a free spirit to her dancing, and though one wishes the choreography gave him more opportunity to play up the Creature’s yearning for love and acceptance, Steven McRae is creepy, angry and genuinely disturbing in the role.
Box office: 020 7304 4000, to May 27; Frankenstein will be screened live in cinemas on May 18