“Love & Desire,” by Hamish Bowles, was originally published in the April 2020 issue of Vogue.
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American ballet theatre’s principal dancer Misty Copeland, 37, and soloist Calvin Royal III, 31, will make history this spring when they become the company’s first African American partners to perform the title roles in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. The new production, set to music composed by Sergei Prokofiev under challenging conditions in Soviet Russia in the 1930s (and first performed there at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1940), was initially choreographed by MacMillan at London’s Royal Opera House in 1965, with lavish costume and set designs by Nicholas Georgiadis. The legendary dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn received 43 curtain calls on opening night. (Fonteyn, who at the time was in her mid-40s, had seen her career reborn by her partnership with Nureyev, nearly 20 years her junior.)
MacMillan’s ballet famously requires not only technical virtuosity but nuanced acting as Juliet evolves from a giddy, childlike teenager to a young woman experiencing romantic and carnal love for the first time. “Juliet is my favorite role in my repertoire, but I first took it on without a lot of experience,” Copeland says. It is a role, she insists, that “you don’t know until you are out there living it—it’s impossible to prepare in the studio.” And for the dancer playing Romeo—who is onstage through much of the performance: “I used to curse MacMillan,” notes ABT’s artistic director, Kevin McKenzie, a celebrated Romeo himself in the 1980s. “The role is a huge physical challenge and takes confidence because stamina is an issue. You are so tired that you have to trust your technique. Calvin’s at a point of breakthrough. He’s really ready for Romeo.”
“Calvin is a spiritual dancer,” says Copeland, “and I’m so excited to give myself to him and not come with any preconceived ideas but to respond to the Romeo that he shows me.”
Royal has memories of being a teenager in the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at ABT and watching the ballet from the wings, waiting for his moment to help bring on the carriage for the ballroom scene. “Even back then, Romeo was a dream role that I aspired to play one day,” he says. “When I found out that Misty and I would be performing together, it just felt like one of those aha moments—all of the stars are aligning in such a beautiful way.”
