Next week the Royal Ballet will be dancing Romeo and Juliet for the 420th time – which, if you do the maths, means that Kenneth MacMillan's ballet has averaged nearly 10 performances a year since its premiere in 1965. Few works can survive such exposure, and there are parts of it I'd happily never see again. But I'll still be there for Tuesday's show, because, like all of MacMillan's best work, the ballet operates at a level of emotional and psychological complexity that nearly always challenges its dancers to reveal something new.

Much has been said about the MacMillan legacy in this, his 80th anniversary year. But what interests me is the impact he's made on the acting style of the Royal Ballet, his home company. Famously, MacMillan's balletsWASHINGTON — Barring extraordinary circumstances, Solicitor General Elena Kagan should win confirmation to the Supreme Court on the strength of Democrats' numerical advantage in the Senate.

To stop her from becoming the nation's 112th justice, Democrats would have to abandon President Barack Obama and his second high court pick or almost all of the GOP senators would have to agree to filibuster the nomination — more than a year after seven of them voted for Kagan to become the solicitor general.

It is unlikely that Republicans will try to block her, said Manuel Miranda, chairman of the conservative Third Branch Conference.

"She shouldn't be filibustered, she won't be filibustered," said Miranda, a former Senate staffer who worked on judicial nominations. "Probably no nominee would have been filibustered. The notion of a