Kirov Ballet of the Maryinsky Theater.

OPERA HOUSE, THE KENNEDY CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC JANUARY 16-21, 2007

Ancient stones blush in a new day's light as a handsome lad wends his tardy way to bed. The city begins to stir. This is vibrant and violent Verona waking to a way of life that pulses with dancing, flirting, and fighting. The fighting hardly stops when some poor soul dies. Dawn filters, too, into a high-vaulted room in which a girl, on the cusp of womanhood, is already at play. Darting about, she shimmers like a dewdrop on a windblown blade of grass. Pausing, she glows like a pearl. Small, yet formed as finely as if by sculptor Phidias' chisel, she is Shakespeare's Juliet. The audience expects that her path and that of the lad now slumbering off-stage will cross. He is none other than Romeo.

So ideal was opening night's lead casting for the Kirov's Romeo and Juliet that audience comments waxed poetic. There had been hints about this Juliet, Evgenya Obraztsova (one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" in 2006). Yet on seeing her, viewers felt a surge of discovery. Unlike Ulanova, originator of the role, Obraztsova isn't larger than life. Instead, she seems to be making personal responses when she pauses. In motion she's often impulsive, yet able to cushion her energy so that it sings.

Romeo was the familiar Andrian Fadeyev, and how flesh he was, how easily elegant his dancing. Fadeyev and Obraztsova were lovestruck, and this permeated all they did--from ecstatic leaps to tender touching, from dreamy glides to urgent runs.

The Kirov's version of the Leonid Lavrovsky choreography is lighter than the Bolshoi's. Classical ensembles, although brief, are vivid. While this touring production could have used more side panels and a larger Scene 1 crowd, the reductions let Lavrovsky's craftsmanship emerge all the more clearly.

Alternate casting was worthwhile. Igor Kolb, Obraztsova's Romeo on one occasion, is a strong actor and powerful dancer but less refined than Fadeyev. Maya Dumchenko's skillfully constructed Juliet was a work of art, yet not a phenomenon beyond art. I did not see her first Romeo--tall, plush Mikhail Lobukhin. Anton Korsakov, her second, is small for her but coped bravely. A new pairing, Vladimir Shklyarov and Olesya Novikova, danced to the hilt. Noteworthy were his elevation and soft landings and her clarity of line. Other indelible characters in Lavrovsky's tapestry of a ballet were Vladimir Ponomarev as Juliet's fearsome father, Elena Bazhenova as her ramrod mother, and Natalya Sveshnikova as the foolishly comfy nurse. As Tybalt, Dmitry Pykhachev hadn't a streak that wasn't mean. Yet--like Romeo and his pals Mercutio (witty Alexander Sergeev) and Benvolio (commonsensical Maxim Khrebtov)--this Tybalt also was young and vulnerable. See www.kirov.com.

GEORGE JACKSON