<<  -- 3 --  Robert Anderson    MAXIMUM SENSUALITY

The intensity of their consuming love gets fiery expression in the garden beneath Juliet's balcony, where Prokofiev's lyricism allows the dancers maximum sensuality and this wondrous pair suggests Tristan and Isolde in portraying a passion that can only be fully realised in death [watch and listen -- chapter 24, 53:54-55:10]. Marriage might save them, provided they can flee the family feud. The Friar Laurence of Sergio Sanvito, initially rehearsing a Soviet prayer or two, finally agrees to join their hands [watch and listen -- chapter 30, 76:21-77:12].

That messages and medicaments go sufficiently awry to cause calamity means the dancing is over and only the acting of despair remains [watch and listen -- chapter 52, 125:38-127:18]. If David Garforth on the rostrum has not achieved the full subtlety of the score with his Milan team, the remedy is at once apparent: any conductor's best friend is the largest mirror he can manage to carry home. To sound right it is essential to look right.