Dance: 'Romeo & Juliet'/'La Bayadère' by Ismene Brown Daily Telegraph Oct. 22, 2003
Ballerinas are a company's crown jewels, and they need looking after. If you have the Hope diamond, you don't stick it on a Matalan jacket. Tamara Rojo, opening yet another run of the Royal Ballet's favourite ticket-seller, Romeo and Juliet, has been partnered with a low-grade new signing and a cast that on opening night looked thrown together rather than lovingly planned.
Tamara Rojo knows that the heart's truths can be told only through aesthetic perfection.
Rojo's exquisite dancing and epic emotion make every ballet she performs an adult occasion. She knows, as few do, that the heart's truths can be told only through aesthetic perfection. Her Juliet seems initially too grave and delicate a child to bear the world of sorrows she is about to bring on her own head; the awakening of her heart and soul, the walking of the abyss between abandoned bliss and abandonment - she develops these with the skill of a very great actress, but silently, through entrancingly detailed movement......
Royal Ballet - "Romeo & Juliet" - Jefffery Taylor - Sunday Express Nov 2, 2003
If Tamara Rojo had been born speaking instead of dancing she would by now have garnered every acting award known to man or woman.
She won the first British dancing Oscar, the 2001 National Dance Award for Best Female Dancer, but it simply is not enough to keep up with this Spanish born artist who is rapidly evolving into a British national treasure. Every time she steps on stage she illumines the work she is in, and the role she plays in it, with a fierce intelligence and an artistic depth that is rare in the theatre as a whole, never mind simply in dance.
We are all eager for the on screen vulvenable humanity of say, Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, but when that intimate reality is on a stage in flesh and blood, and speaking to our hearts in just a dance language, then we must take the artist, and the art form, very seriously indeed. Like the first love duet when she is a girl child frozen by the sight of a boy like a rabbit in a headlight's glare; or the balcony scene an adolescent utterly abandoned to the joy of infatuation and the rapture of surrender; and the post consummation morning with her first and last lover, a swooning woman in love for whom separation feels like death which it surely is........And then add Tamara Rojo, and not only MacMillan but Shakespeare should be very, very proud.
ARTS: Romeo & Juliet, CLEMENT CRISP - Financial Times, Nov. 3, 2003
....These exemplars of theatrical art (rather than theatrical artifice) were Tamara Rojo as Juliet and Elizabeth McGorian as her mother. For the first two acts Rojo was fighting a losing battle as she strove to show a girl's journey to womanhood, and her every effort beat unavailing against the decent dullness of David Makhateli's Romeo. Without ardour, neat and proper in dance, he seemed to be performing by numbers, and not very high numbers at that. Rojo's feelings started to soar, and found themselves tethered to a lover as responsive as an ice-cube.
It was only in the third act, with Romeo gone, that Rojo could show us her passionately thuthful heroine, the dance freed. Like Lynn Seymour, great original of the role, and an artist to whom Rojo bears a more than passing resemblance, she drags us to the ballet headlong in her wake, deep into the heart of character and choreography........
Romeo & Juliet - Luke Jennings - The Guardian - Nov. 1, 2003
....(Tamara Rojo)...From the moment she sees Romeo at the ball, she knows exactly what she wants. Her eyes yearn insistently towards him, blurring with adolescent desire at his approach. This Juliet is ready for anything, and if Makhateli's response is tentative, then she has passion enough for both of them.
Hungry for love but agonisingly vulnerable, Rojo's Juliet is a heartbreaking creation. Her leitmotif is the arching of her back into arabesque. It is an adult statement, always sumptuously phrased, but the flickering impression of the child is allowed to linger too. By act three, knowing the adulthood has betrayed her, she proceeds with terrible certainty to the moment when, dying, her back arches over the side of the tomb.
This was Rojo's night - she danced both beautifully and movingly.......
Dance: Manon - by Nadine Meisner - The Independent - May 22, 2003
Manon, ......Very occasionally, though, a cast arrives on stage that grips this grump's attention until the final curtain. Carlos Acosta and Tamara Rojo, who made their debuts in the ballet this month, are one such cast. We know that Acosta and Rojo have the same approach, that, for all their virtuosity, they believe that steps must have meaning. The extent to which they fulfil their dramatic credo makes the story suddenly light up and throb with real life. Never before has it been so apparent that every pas de deux has an emotional development, so that each is a mini-narrative in itself. Acosta is a fabulous partner who transforms even the lifts into expressive statements.
Rojo's movement has a fullness and directness that transforms the simplest gesture into a channel for the heart's deep tremors. Her manon's special allure is visible right at the start, in the sweet, unaffected kisses with which she greets strangers. Her warmth and insouciance radiate in her encounters with Des Grieux. But confront her with material wealth, and she becomes a manipulative minx, self-consciously exercising her charms, slipping into a rich, furlined robe with hushed delight, turning her extended wrist to watch her diamond bracelet catch the candlelight....
Dance: Manon - by Jeffery Taylor - Sunday Express - May 11, 2003
In a searing performance Tamara Rojo danced her way into the history books last week in her first performance in the title role of Kenneth MacMillan's 1974 ballet, Manon. Few of the 2.000 dance lovers packing the Opera House will forget how Rojo, Spanish born but settled in the UK for the past 6 years, three of them with the Royal Ballet, re-defined the art of dramatic dance in Britain.
...Rojo is a dancer who takes no prisoners and her Manon is a young woman delighted to go to extremes for the man she loves, for her a strictly sensual emotion and incredible fun.
...the late Kenneth MacMillan's genius was his ability to realise on stage through movement the infinite complexities of human relationships. Watching Rojo and Acosta illuminate the eternal contradictions of love was like seeing a painting by Rembrandt come suddenly to life. MacMillan would have been very, very proud.
Dance: Manon - by Clement Crisp - Finantial Times - May 08, 2003
White smoke from the Covent Garden chimneys on Wednesday night. We have a Manon!
After years in which the role has seemed either lacklustre or mannered, Tamara Rojo - in a debut - reasserted its irresistible charm, its emotional lustre.
Rojo is a creature of the theatre who, when the role suits her, makes it anew in her own image. Her first appearance in Ondine was, I heretically found, more intriguing than Fonteyn's creation. In Song of the Earth, in Shadowplay, she has worn the dance with an unassailable rightness.
Now, coached by Lynn Seymour - whom she often resembles in physique and dramatic power - she has claimed Manon for her own. What she understands is that the role is about sexual allure, about a woman with an irresistible sensuality and an eagerness to have her rich cake and eat it.
The dance was deliciously done, driven and phrased with a perfect understanding of its always erotic climaxes: jewels, men's admiration, that beautiful robe that GM first gives her offer the same stimulus for her as a lover's body. Nothing was missed in a portrait - its final moments piteously sublime - distinguished by its subtlety of feeling and its understanding of detail in MacMillan's writing.....
Song of the Earth - Luke Jennings - Daily Telegraph - 23/05/03
...Song of the Earth, danced to Mahler's symphonic song sequence, treats with love, loss and the inevitability of death, mitigating these melancholy themes with an expression of the certainty of life's renewal.
The parts of the Woman, the Man and the Messenger of Death were performed by Tamara Rojo, Jonathan Cope and Carlos Acosta with moving empathy. Rojo's dancing, in particular, was faultlessly pitched. She seemed to languish during Ross Stretton's directorship, and it is wonderful to see her back at the top of her form. Nuanced, restrained and intelligent, her dancing represents the best that the Royal stands for. She must be cherished.
Submerged in a diva's domain - Luke Jennings 02/05/2003
...Tamara Rojo, attended by a turquoise-costumed Martin Harvey, is the domain's resident diva. She smoulders voluptuously - a young Elizabeth Taylor - but her dancing is as cool as creme-de-menthe frappee. As Stravinsky's music dictates, all is staccato. Fingers are pointed and feet flicker like knives. The men, too, are excellent, and Johannes Stepanek brings a wonderfully convoluted edge to his solo...
The Sleeping Beauty. Who is the fairest of them all? - John Percival - The Independent
There have been six casts so far in Natalia Makarova's new Sleeping Beauty at Covent Garden; how do they measure up? ......
My chief admiration goes to Tamara Rojo; her Aurora has a wonderfully serene grace and also brings out all the nuances of style and feeling in the character's three contrasted scenes. She even gives the solos really musical smoothness in spite of the curlicues Makarova has added. This is the ballerina quality the ballet needs.
Jeffery Taylor - Sunday Express - 16-03-2003
Alina Cojocaru and Tamara Rojo already inspire fiercely loyal support from their fans, but their bid for artistic and technical perfection as Princess Aurora, the sponymous Beauty who is awoken from a 100 year's sleep by a handsome Prince's kiss, will inspire dedicated head scratching and enthusiastic debate for the foreseeable future. Lucky dance lovers saw them both last week. Cojocaru, 21, is what she plays. She enters her 16th birthday party tiny and vulnerable, and then attacks the infamous balancing act called the Rose Adage with her four suitors with unbelievable perfection; on stage and off, a radiant young girl with the steely technique of a prima ballerina an irresistible combination. But no matter how blistering her pirouettes or impossible her balances Rojo, 26, remains flesh and blood; her dramatic sincerity engages your heart as well as your eye as she takes you through her journey from child to woman with all the variety and authority of a great dancer. This happy conundrum is ours for the next couple of months at the Royal Opera House.
Jann Parry - Sunday March 16, 2003 - The Observer - The Sleeping Beauty
Tamara Rojo gives the most rounded account of Aurora in what is otherwise a two-dimensional
picture of the kingdom she is to inherit. She addresses her dancing to the court
as well as her audience, showing us how she grows in maturity. Her serene
melancholy in the vision scene is the right spur for her prince.
Ismene Brown - Daily Telegraph- ROJO IS QUEEN OF THE SWAN QUEENS
Rojo has dared more than any other ballerina - she makes an intensely feminine Swan Queen, with long, fine musical phrasing and tender emotional suspense; Acosta, a Siegfried of heartfels simplicity, seemed in rapt awe, sinking into her spell. As the doppelganger Odile, she made those famous stunts glitter, an arabesque frozen in time, fouettes of mesmerising speed and complexity. Seductive, audacious, Rojo knows what those stunts are for - to dazzle Siegfried and us with the temptations of evil.
Ismene Brown - Daily Telegraph
...Rojo's soul, intelligence and technical versatility make every role she does a fascinating experience. Last week, she was like a little red Spitfire in Mats Ek's raucous, modern Carmen. Now, in a trice, she becomes the gloriously romantic Juliet. She cannot help revealing her racing thoughts with every step - her ecstasy at her first dance with a man, the suitor Paris, turned in visible seconds to a realisation that this man leaves her cold. Once locked on to Romeo, she was an Exocet missile of passion, and it was amazing that Murru could stay with her.
Clement Crisp - Financial Times "A 'Giselle' of rarest virtues
We have a Giselle, a wonderful interpreter of Romanticism's finest flower as it returns to the Royal Ballet repertory at Covent Garden. She is Tamara Rojo, and one should ask for no more in these dreary days.
Rojo's Giselle looks like a child, which is as it should be, and dances like a ballerina, which is even more as it should be. Ravishing technique and understanding of movement: pirouettes sweet and secure and floating; foot and leg shaping a phrase, accenting a musical climax with delicious grace and sensitivity; dance poured out in an exquisite cantilena. Rojo shows every nuance of feeling, and is able to explore a characterisation with no lapse in belief. Fascinating the way she tells us of Giselle's weakened heart during the early meeting with Albrecht. As he send Hilarion packing, we see her hand go to her heart, as if emotion were already exacting its toll. The peasant girl is ardent, shy, radiant in innocence. Madness finds her drained of feeling, every earlier emotion turned in on itself. The wili, danced with ineffable lightness, is all compassion. Here, in sum, is a Giselle of rarest virtues. It is a portrait which suggests exceptional intelligence, as dancer and actress.
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Tamara Rojo, the new young principal formerly of English National Ballet, made a breathtaking conquest in her debut as the sea-nymph.
Little, black-haired, with a milky throat and feet curved as cleanly as fins, she trilled and dived through Ashton's mercurial choreography and Henze's paradoxically costive music as a water sprite should. But also being a great character-actress, she provokes us nervously to wonder whether this decorative little seducer has a human heart or a fishy one.
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Tamara Rojo, la joven nueva principal, anteriormente del English National Ballet, realizó una imponente conquista en su debut como ninfa del agua.
Pequeña, morena, con un blanquísimo cuello y unos pies curvados como aletas, gorjea y bucea a través de la coreografía de Ashton y la paradogicamente difícil música de Henze como debería un espíritu del agua. Al mismo tiempo, siendo una gran actriz de carácter, nos provoca, nerviosamente, a pensar si esta pequeña y decorativa seductora tiene un corazón humano y uno de pez.
Rojo is working her way through the Covent Garden repertoire with such delight and panache that even Violetta might not be beyond her powers. On Thursday she danced Frederick Ashton's Ondine and it was a privilege to watch. The ballet, created in 1958 for Margot Fonteyn, retells Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's tale of a mortal man's doomed love for a water nimph.
Rojo's ondine was a sweet, trusting child, too simple-hearted to comprehend human spite and treachery. Her legible face with its big, dark eyes and wide, Spanish mouth conveyed the fleeting joys and ultimate sadness of a creature truly out of her element but her body told the same story. Her gorgeously arched feet and voluptuous arms took total possession of the choreography, her quicksilver fingers and wrists effortlessly suggesting the darting movements of the deep. Rojo's whole body reeled with pain as she regretfully kissed her lover to death in a scene that made me ache to see her first performance in MacMillan's Juliet next February. Sometimes a debut is so good it's like seeing the ballet for the very first time.
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Rojo está recorriendo el repertorio del Covent Garden con tanta gracia y garbo que incluso el role de Violeta puede estar a su alcance. El jueves bailó Ondine de Frederick Ashton y verla fue un privilegio. El ballet, creado en 1958 para Margot Fonteyn, recrea el cuento de Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué de un mortal condenado por su amor a una ninfa de agua.
La Ondine de Rojo fue como una niña dulce, confiada, demasiado inocente para comprender el rencor y traición humanos. Su trasparente cara con sus grandes y negros ojos, su boca hispana, comunican el gozo y último pesar de una criatura verdaderamente fuera de su elemento, pero su cuerpo cuenta la misma historia. Sus maravillosos pies arqueados, sus voluptuosos brazos tomaron total posesión de la coreografía, sus argentados dedos y muñecas sugiriendo, sin ningún esfuerzo, los movimientos del profundo. Todo el cuerpo de Rojo se estremecía con la pena cuando apesadumbrada besa a su amor hasta la muerte en una escena que me hizo desear su primera actuación como la Julieta de MacMillan el próximo febrero. Algunas veces un debut es tan bueno que es como si estuviéramos viendo el ballet por la primera vez..
Tamara Rojo must be having one hell of a year. Having jumped ship from English National Ballet, where she was the undisputed star, the young Spanish ballerina landed at Covent Garden, where she has been busy launching herself into the Royal Ballet's repertoire. Her Giselle in the summer was an impressive early debut; her Odette in October proved she could be a real asset to the Royal. Now Ondine confirms that Rojo will be one of the most valuable additions to the company's lineup in years....Rojo is very comfortable with the natural-supernatural divide. She is both real and unreal as the captivating spirit who lives beneath the Mediterranean. She is playful like a human child, yet she embodies the dark forces of the deep. She is a force that cannot be ignored, and she's beautiful.
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Tamara Rojo debe de estar experimentando un año extraordinario. Habiendo saltado del English National Ballet, donde era la indiscutida estrella, la joven bailarina española aterrizó en el Covent Garden, donde ha estado muy ocupada con el repertorio del Royal Ballet. Su Giselle, en el verano, fue un impresionante temprano debut; su Odette en Octubre probó que podía ser un activo real para el Royal. Ahora Ondine
confirma que Rojo será una de las mas valiosas adiciones a la compañía en años....Rojo está muy confortable en la división natural-sobrenatural. Es real e ilusoria como el cautivador espíritu que vive en las profundidades del Mediterráneo. Es juguetona como un niño humano, al tiempo que encarna las oscuras sombras del profundo. Es una fuerza que no se puede ignorar, y es preciosa.
Rojo is fragile-seeming in physique, still youthful in appearance - this is the first 16-year-old Odette I have seen for ages - and possessed of a beautifully secure and expressive technique. She is also, as we have come happily to recognise, a devastating dance-actress. Her actions speak so loudly that we need no words. The Swan Queen grieves and hopes against hope, and we know every nuance of feeling. Her Odile is malign, seductive, and dazzles Siegfried - as she dazzles us - with prodigies of steps. The third-act fireworks flared and glittered: triple fouettes, and the occasional quadruple; long-held and steady balances; musical sensitivity - all this told of her style. But even more exciting was the poetic sensibility that coloured every action. She is a fascinating young ballerina.
El debut - de Tamara Rojo en El Lago de los Cisnes -me parece de un gran significado. Rojo, otras de las deslumbrantes bailarinas de la escuela de Victor Ullate en Madrid, nos llamó la atención, en primer lugar, con La Sylphide, interpretada con el Scottish Ballet y después dominó el Albert Hall como la Julieta de Derek Deane. Ahora se ha unido al Royal Ballet y su primera actuación en El Lago -dos de las mas "sucias" palabras en el lenguaje de los amantes de la danza - fué una triunfante afirmación de sus dotes. Y del derecho del talento a transformar las mas adversas circunstancias.
Rojo tiene un físico de apariencia fragil y, todavia, joven - esta es la primera Odette de 16 años que yo he visto en siglos - y posee una preciosa, segura y expresiva técnica. Tambien es, como hemos llegado felizmente a reconocer, una devastadora actriz de danza. Sus acciones hablan tan alto que no se necesitan palabras. Su Reina de los Cisnes se aflige y espera contra toda esperanza, y nosotros reconocemos cada matiz de sus sentimientos. So Odile is maligna, seductora y deslumbra a Siegfrid -como nos deslumbra a nosotros - con prodigios de pasos. Los fuegos artificiales del tercer acto llamean y brillan: fouettes triples, y de ocasional cuadruple; larguísimos equilibrios; sensibilidad musical - todo esto nos cuenta su estilo. Pero incluso mas excitante fue la poética sensibilidad que coloreó cada acción. Ella es una fascinante joven bailarina.
Ismene Brown - The Daily Telegraph
...Not so on Wednesday, when Tamara Rojo, former flame of English National Ballet, made an exciting occasion of her official Royal Ballet debut (last summer's Giselle was a last-minute substitution). Her Odette was all woman - tender, intense, passionately clear, desperate to escape her slavery.
She is compact but, like Seymour and Collier, has de gift of disguise, spinning musical phrases through her body: piano, mezzo-forte, fortissimo.
As Odette's black counterpart, Odile, she looked like a wicked child, all deceit. I won't forget one lenghy unsupported arabesque, and then the evis smirk she shot at the audience after it. The audience loudly approved, knowing they had just seen the rising of a new star.
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...No ocurió lo mismo el miércoles, cuando Tamara Rojo, anterior llama del English National Ballet, hizo una excitante ocasión de su debut oficial en el Royal Ballet (su actuación de Giselle el pasado verano fué una sustitución de último minuto). Su Odette fue toda mujer - tierna, intensa, apasionadamente clara, desesperada por escapar de su esclavitud.
Es compacta pero, como Seymour y Collier, tiene el don del disimulo, realizando frases musicales a través de su cuerpo: piano, mezzo-forte, fortissimo.
Como contrapartida a Odette, Odile parecía un niño malvado, todo engaño. No olvidaré un larguísimo arabesque, sin apoyo, y luego la mirada de reojo que lanzó al publico. La audiencia aprobó ruidosamente, sabiendo que estaban viendo el nacimiento de una nueva estrella.
Debra Craine - The Times
...When we first meet Rojo's Odette she is a tremulous beauty, both cautious and curious around this stranger Siegfried. But the creamy slowness of her dancing suggests she is savouring this moment of romantic exploration. In the white pas de deux you can see the remarkable seamlessness in her technique and her anthusiasm for stretching the legato line. In the black pas de deux Rojo turns spitfire, detonating pirouettes as she attacks Siegfried's naive perceptions of love. The same choreographic shapes that spoke of tender yielding in Act II's love duet here take on a cynical edge, as if Rojo has turned the ballet on its head. It's clear that she sees Odile as a master manipulator and it's her sneering commentary on the innocence of Odette that makes Act III so dramatically fulfilling.
Technically, it was a triumph too, Rojo bursting out of her tutu with confidence. She even wove a series of triple pirouettes into her famous fouetté sequence, and I've never seen that before.
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...Cuando vemos por primera vez la Odette de Rojo, nos encontramos con una trémula belleza, a la vez prudente y curiosa alrededor de este extraño, Siegfried. No obstante la cremosa lentitud de su baile sugieren que esta saboreando este momento de romántica exploración. En el paso a dos blanco se puede ver la increíble cohesión de su técnica y su entusiasmo por alargar la línea continua. En el paso a dos negro Rojo se vuelve rayo, lanzando piruetas al atacar la naive concepción del amor por parte de Siegfried. La misma forma coreográfica que hablaba de tierna entrega en el dueto de amor del II Acto toma, aquí, un aspecto cínico, como si Rojo hubiese podido darle la vuelta al ballet. Está claro que percibe a Odile como una maestra de la manipulación y es su desdeñoso ademán sobre la inocencia de Odette el que convierte al III Acto en un completo drama.
Técnicamente fue también un triunfo, Rojo irrumpe de su tutu con confianza. Incluso realiza una serie de triples piruetas, en su famosa secuencia de fouetté, y yo nunca habia visto esto.
...Como era de esperar de Tamara Rojo, desechó el perezoso guión del texto y optó por aplicar su incisiva inteligencia en un radical replanteamiento, de forma que cada movimiento surge pristino y lleno de significado. Su Odette, hecha a su imagen personal, directa y pasionada, quizás demasiado definida para encontrar la triste poesia de la coreografía. Pero esto es una nimiedad en una interpretación que fué una maravilla en su articulación de técnica y drama. Perfectos equilibrios mantenidos durante momentos interminables, triple fouettes intrepidamente realizados, el diminuto contorno de su cuerpo un transparente conducto para sus fluctuantes emociones.
We could talk about perfection even if it sounds like a topic. Tarama Rojo's performance in Giselle has to be explained that way. The Ullate dancer, who is now a Star at the Royal Ballet, comes with an extraordinary maturity. Concentration, sensibility and inteligence define this tenacious and hard working dancer hidden behind her image of beautiful doll.
Rojo does not raise easy passions, even though she could, but admiration for her expresive and technical work calibrated throughout the whole ballet. A rigurous outline marked the expresive lines of her insanity and reached the height of the "Grand Diva", dropping, with no blemish, the bunch of turns and sautés "on pointe" of her variation with and authentic intention of elegant coquetry.
Julio Bravo - ABC
La emoción de lo perfecto
Si de algo puede presumir la danza española es de bailarines.....Una de esas puntas de lanza es Tamara Rojo, quien después de varias actuaciones en los festivales de Granada y Perelada, se ha querido unirse, durante tres días, al que fuera su primer maestro, Victor Ullate, para adornar el cartel de su "Giselle" con una encomiable generosidad. Tamara Rojo es una bailarina en constante crecimiento y su "Giselle" es hoy mucho mas llena, mas madura y mas reflexionada que hace un año. Asentada en una portentosa técnica, que desarrolla con una expresiva naturalidad, su baile se convierte en un verdadero espectáculo. Limpieza, seguridad, decisión, son elementos que elevan su baile a grados muy cercanos a la perfección, y de ahí surge la emoción. Tamara consiguió en el segundo acto (especialmente en su paso a dos) momentos de verdadera magia, de enorme tensión que demuestran bien a las claras que estamos ante una de las mejores bailarinas del mundo. Y es española.
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If Spanish dance can be conceited about something is dancers.... One of the arrows of the spear is Tamara Rojo who, after some performances at the Granada and Perelada Festivals has wished to join, for three days, Victor Ullate, her first "Maestro" to adorn his "Giselle" with a laudable generosity. Tamara Rojo is a dancer in constant growth and her "Giselle" is, today, fuller more mature and reflected than one year ago. Setled on an extraordinary technique that she develops with an expresive naturality, her dancing transforms into a veritable performance. Cleaness, security, decision are elements that elevate dancing close to perfection and it is then that emotion arises. Tamara atained in the second act (specially on the Pas de Deux) moments of true magic, of enormous tension that clearly shows that we are in front of one of the best dancers of the world. And she is spanish.
Debra Craine - The Times
...Rojo, the spirited Spaniard has been dancing with English National Ballet for the past three years and seeing her there we have become used to her passionate commitment on stage. But her Giselle still came as a surprise.
As the young peasant girl wronged by Albrecht, she seems like a woman possessed, first by love and happiness, then by madness and despair. The cruelty is that she is so full of enthusiasm in Act I , so fervently flirtatious and eager for all live has to offer, that Albrecht's betrayal, however unwitting, is a crushing blow. Come the mad scene and Rojo is scary - you can almost hear her scream. Act II finds her deep in the well of anguish, her effusive dancing underlining the sadness that has overtaken the lovers.
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...Rojo, la espiritosa española ha bailado con el English National Ballet los últimos tres años y ya estamos habituados a su apasionada entrega en escena. No obstante su Giselle nos sorprendió.
Como joven campesina traicionada por Albrecht, parece una mujer poseída, primero por amor y felicidad, después por la locura y desesperación. La crueldad es que está tan llena de entusiasmo en el Primer Acto, tan deseosa de todo lo que la vida tiene que ofrecer que la traición de Albrecht, aunque involuntaria, es un golpe aplastante. En la escena de la locura Rojo da miedo - casi puedes oír su grito. El Acto II la encuentra sumergida en un pozo de angustia, su efusiva danza subrayando la tristeza de los amantes.
Clement Crisp -
Financial Times
Oddly, for a
production on this scale, where sheer numbers might be supposed to be the
viewer's reward, the greatest joy of the evening is the performances of certain
artists, chief among them Tamara Rojo as Juliet. She was an adorable Clara in ENB's Nutcracker last winter.
Now she is revealed as a dancer of rare emotional and physical grace, of
fresh impulses, of wholly engrossing feeling.
She looks very young: she looks like Juliet.
Her acting is unfforced, absolutely convincing. Amid the mêlée, her
face holds our sttention by its beauty and its expressive truth: you see it
through a crowd of revellers or amid family tensions, and the drama lives
exactly. Her body curves in delight, is torn by grief, and we believe. She is
beautiful, moves most sweetly, and she commands the vast area she dances in with
no apparent effort.
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Extraño para una
produccion de estas características donde el número de bailarines está
supuesto a ser el premio para los espectadores, la mayor alegria es la actuación
de ciertos artistas, el primero entre ellos Tamara Rojo como Julieta. Fué una
Clara adorable durante la produccion de Cascanueces el pasado invierno. Ahora
ella se revela como una bailarina de rara gracia física y emocional, de
impulsos frescos, de completo sentimiento. Parece muy joven: Se parece a Julieta.
Su actuación no es forzada y es absolutamente convincente. Entre "la mêlée,
su cara llama nuestra atención por su belleza y expresiva verdad: la ves a través
de la masa o entre las tensiones familiares y el drama vive exacto. Su cuerpo se
curva de gozo, se rompe de pena, y nosotros creemos. Es bella, se mueve
dulcemente y domina la vasta area donde baila con no aparente esfuerzo.
Ismene Brown - Daily Telegraph
"A new star in ballet of the year"
And what an
unforgettable Juliet in 23-year-old Tamara Rojo, a Spaniard first highlighted by
Scottish Ballet two years ago. In her first major leading role, as Juliet she
left thousands of spectators wet-eyed with emotion on opening night - and made
clear that she will be a great star.
Looking unusually young and vulnerable, but with
beautiful technique, she wrung every last drop of truth from the heroine's
curiosity, enrapturement, satisfaction, dread and agony. Her wonderful delicacy
and natural intensity made this an uncannily real experience.
Y que inolvidable
Julieta Tamara Rojo, una española que llamó la atencion con el Scottish Ballet
hace dos años. En su primer gran role como Julieta dejó a miles de
espectadores con los ojos húmedos por la emoción en la noche del estreno - y
dejó claro que será una gran estrella.
Viendose inusualmente joven y vulnerable, pero con una
bella técnica, sacó hasta la última gota de verdad de la curiosidad,encanto,
satisfacción, miedo y agonia de la heroina. Su maravillosa delicadeza y natural
intensidad hizo de esta una inolvidable real experiencia.
Louise Levene -
The Independent
I had not expected
to be moved to anything but laughter by this production but Tamara Rojo's
remarkable Juliet reduced me to tears.
No esperaba que
nada me conmoviese sino la risa en esta producción pero la remarcable actuación
de Tamara Rojo como Julieta me redujo a las lágrimas
Jann Parry -
The Observer
Tamara Rojo is one of the finest Juliets you could hope to see. Vulnerably
slight, she can be a child one moment and a passionate woman the next. Her howl
of despair over Romeo's corpse is uncannily like that of her mother (Lynn
Seymour) over Tybalt's body. But unlike Seymour, who created MacMillan's Juliet,
Rojo has not been given vivid imagery to express her every thought. She succeeds
in spite of her choreography.
Tamara Rojo es una
de las mejores Julietas que puedas esperar ver. Vulnerablemente delicada, puede
ser una niña en un momento para convertirse en una apasionada mujer el
siguiente. Su grito de desesperación sobre el cuerpo de Romeo es tan fuerte
como el de su madre (Lynn Seymour) sobre el cuerpo de Tybalt. Pero,
contrariamente a Seymour, creadora de la Julieta de MacMillan, a Rojo no le ha
sido dada una vivida imaginería para expresar cada uno de sus pensamientos.
Triunfa a pesar de la coreografía.
Debra Craine - The Times
Tamara Rojo as
Juliet is a "gorgeous Spaniard, but the beauty of her dancing is more than
matched by the ardour of her drama. Time and again it is she who rescues the
spectable from stagnation, as if she alone remembers that whatever its
dimensions, this is still a love story at heart.
Tamara Rojo como
Julieta es una "preciosa española, pero la belleza de su baile está mas
que igualada con el ardor de su drama. Una y otra vez es ella la que rescata el
espectaculo de la lentitud, como si solo ella recordara que, sin importar las
dimensiones del escenario, Julieta sigue siendo una historia de amor.
Nicholas Dromgoole - Sunday Telegraph
It says much for
Deane's choreographic skills that his version seems to have banished the
longueurs of the MacMillan scenario, but that is what he does. Partly this is
due to his leading principals who on the first night were mesmerisingly good,
Tamara Rojo and Roberto Bolle.
She is young, fluent, wonderfully vulnerable with a real gift for dramatic,
expressive dance. We believed in her every move, and she captivated and
conquered her Albert Hall audience - a very big audience -
as though intimately spelling out the innermost secrets of her romantic
heart.
Hay que decir que
la coreografia de Deane ha superado la grandeza del escenario de MacMillan, eso
es lo que hace. Esto ha sido conseguido, principalmente, gracias a los
bailarines de la primera noche, Tamara Rojo y Roberto Bolle.
Tamara es joven, fluente, maravillosamente vulnerable tiene un verdadero don
para la danza drámatica y espresiva. Creemos
en todos sus movimientos y ella cautiva y conquista su audiencia del Albert Hall
- una gran audiencia - como si nos
fuera desgranando intimamente los mas profundos secretos de su romantico corazón.
Emma Man
Juliet, Tamara Rojo, is very obviously Deane's new muse, and he could not have
found a more exquisite creature for this role. Her every step has a velvet edge,
and her interpretation comes from the heart.
Julieta,
Tamara Rojo, es muy obviamente la nueva musa de Deane y el no podria haber
encontrado una criatura mas esquisita para este role.
Todos los pasos estan realizados con una gran delicadeza y su
interpretacion sale del corazón.
Jennifer
Delaney - Sunday Business
At the centre of
this (stage) are the starcrossed lovers themselves, the superb Tamara Rojo and
Roberto Bolle. ENB is rapidly developing a reputation for discovering new talent,
and Rojo's rise to stardom has been rapid. Both are sheer heaven to watch -
Bolle's technique is as perfect as his looks while Rojo's lyrical beauty more
than justifies Deane's faith in her.
En el centro de él
(escenario) estan los amantes, los magnificos Tamara Rojo y Roberto Bolle. ENB
está rapidamente desarrollando una reputación como descubridora de nuevos
talentos y la ascensión de Tamara Rojo a estrella ha sido muy rápido. Los dos
son un cielo de ver - La técnica de Bolle es tan perfecta como su aspecto
mientras que la belleza lírica de Rojo mas que justifica la fé de Deane en
ella.
Louise Lavene -
New Stateman
Deane not only has
the charm and good sense to persuade international stars to shine for him (Lynn
Seymour is dancing Lady Capulet at six performances), he also has the courage
and imagination to promote young talent. At last week's opening, the 24-year-old
Tamara Rojo danced and acted Juliet with rare skill and power, her body singing
with happiness in the love duets and visible shrinking with pain in her bliss
congealed into tragedy. ENB are convinced that they must build an audience
before they can allow themselves the luxury of teaching it that there is more to
ballet than glossy spectacle. If Deane can continue to command performances like
Rojo's, they may find that they can do both things simultaneously.
Deane no solo
tiene la gracia y el buen sentido para convencer a artistas internacionales para
brillar para él (Lynn Seymour baila Lady Capulet en seis actuaciones), tiene
también el coraje y la imaginación para promover a jóvenes talentos. En el
estreno Tamara Rojo bailó y actuó como Julieta con una rara maestria y poder,
su cuerpo canta de felicidad en los duos de amor y visiblemente se encoge de
tristeza en su felicidad convertida en tragedia. El ENB esta convencido de que
deben reconstruir una gran audiencia antes de permitirse el lujo de enseñarla
que hay mas en ballet que expectáculo. Si Deane puede continuar a desarrollar
actuaciones como la de Rojo pueden encontrarse con que realizarán las dos cosas
a la vez.
David Dougill -
Sunday Times
I saw nothing at
all of Romeo and Juliet's momentous first meeting - his back completely
obliterating her front.
I'm sure it was lovely, though, if you glimpsed it,
because everything else that the heart-throb partnership of the Spanish Tamara
Rojo and Italian Roberto Bolle - both extremely beautiful front and back and all
points around - did in their more intimate encounters, when there were fewer or
no distractions, was gorgeous. Both are technically virtuosic immaculate, and
Deane's choreography for their big duets served them well in its sweeping
fluency and emotional expressiveness. In the couple of years that the young Rojo
has been dancing in Britain, she has already made her mark for ballet
connoisseurs. Now Juliet comes as a revelatory role in her career - in the
subtlety and intensity of her feeling, nothing overstated but everything
eloquent. That and her wonderful dancing. What a bonus for ballet newcomers,
whom these ENB Albert Hall seasons attract.
No pude ver nada
del primer encuentro entre Romeo y Julieta - la espalda de Romeo me tapaba
completamente el frente de Tamara.
Sin embargo estoy seguro de que era precioso, porque todo
lo que hizo la pareja de la Española Tamara Rojo y el italiano Roberto Bolle -
ambos maravillosos, de frente, de espaldas y desde todos los puntos - en sus mas
íntimos encuentros fue fantastico. Los dos son tecnicamente y virtuosamente
inmaculados, y la coreografia de Deane para sus pasos a dos les va
estupendamente con su fluidez y espresión emocional. En los escasos dos años
que Rojo ha bailado en Gran Bretaña ya ha dejado su marca en los conocedores
del ballet. Ahora Julieta llega como un role revelación en su carrera - En la
interioridad e intensidad de sus sentimientos, nada sobre actuado pero todo
elocuente. Eso y su magnifica danza. Que regalo para los nuevos llegados al
ballet, atraidos por la actuación del ENB en el Albert Hall.
Michael Darvell - What's On in London
Tamara Rojo and
Roberto Bolle seems ideal in many ways. Both performers are eloquent in movement
and facial expression, and they dance so well together they might be joined at
the hip. Their body language evokes a palpable intimacy that makes the
relationship all too believable, and while Rojo easily suggests the naïve and
confused girl approaching womanhood, Bolle has a natural, robust quality that
gives him true authority.
Tamara Rojo y
Roberto Bolle son ideales en muchas facetas. Los dos actuan elocuentemente con
el movimiento y la expresión facial y bailan tan bien juntos que perece que
estuviesen unidos por la cadera. Su
lenguaje corporal evoca una palpable intimidad que hace que la relación sea
totalmente creible y mientras que Rojo facilmente sugiere a la naïve y confusa
adolescente en su paso a mujer, Bolle tiene una calidad natural y robusta que le
confiere una real autoridad.
Ismene Brown -
The Daily Telegraph
…Patrick Armand cheered up considerably when the great Tamara Rojo ran in as
Odette, and so did I. Rojo, 25, is as dark and exquisite as a young Liz Taylor.
She lights the brightest flames of balletic fantasy, yet has the common touch (as
her arena Juliet showed last year).
As Odette she was
breathtakingly vulnerable, as Odile she was remorseless, fearlessly firing her
fouettés like magic bullets to all four corners, not your usual occurrence.
Catch any chance to see her.
…Patrick Armand
se animó considerablemente cuando la gran Tamara Rojo entro en escena como
Odette, y también yo lo hice. Rojo
es tan morena y esquisita como una joven Liz Taylor. Ella enciende y abrillanta
las llamas de la fantasía del ballet y al mismo tiempo guarda el toque humano (como
ya se vió en su interpretación de Julieta el año pasado.
Como Odette es tan
vulnerable que quita la respiración, como Odile no tiene piedad, disparando,
sin ningún miedo, sus fouettés como balas mágicas hacia los cuatro lados del
escenario, no es alqo que ocurra frecuentemente. Cace cualquier oportunidad de verla.
Emma Manning -
Dance Europe
… On the first
part of the program Tamara Rojo provided shameless virtuosity in an uplifting
Corsaire. On the second, Rojo also
led the fireworks with the Grand Pas from Paquita. Whilst this abridged staging
comes over as lacking in blood, and the small stage tamed any thoughts of
abandon, Rojo's technical accomplishment, not to mention her innate artistry,
completely won us over.
… En la primera
parte del programa Tamara Rojo ofreció un elevadisimo virtuosismo con el paso a
dos del Corsario. En la segunda
parte Rojo también emcabezó los fuegos artificiales con el Gran Paso a dos de
Paquita. Mientras que el pequeño
escenario no daba lugar a ningún abandono, la consumada técnica de Rojo, sin
mencionar su innato arte, completamente nos ganó a todos
Mary Brennan - The Herald
Tamara Rojo -whom
Scottish Ballet faithfuls will surely remember - is, despite her youth, quite
simply a world-class talent: she has an unfussy finesse about her, a lovely
musicality, and a well-thought-through dramatic edge that comes into its own
when she shifts from Odette to Odile.
Given the vast
distances involved in this production, there's no room for teensy niceties of
facial expression or subtle nuances with raised eyebrows. The ballerina has to
paint her opposing characters with broad brush-strokes, and yet avoid mugging.
Rojo does this superbly. She initially offers an Odette of ideal purity - almost,
but not quite, untouchable - and builds her into a genuinely wounded soul in the
final act. In between times, she glitters with wilful, focused allure as Odile.
Rothbart may prowl
the ballroom like a cloaked controller - but Rojo's Odile knows exactly what's
wanted, and delivers, right down to the last fouette of the famous pyrotechnics.
Tamara Rojo - a quién los seguidores del Scot