The plethora of 20th century ballets notwithstanding, Giulietta e Romeo, a ballet in five acts by Eusebio Luzzi, was first seen in 1785 for the Theatre Samuele in Venice. The music was by Luigi Marescalchi who composed many ballets for the celebrated choreographer Giulio Vigano. We do not know much about Luzzi but two other ballets by him were presented at La Scala, Milan during their 1797-98 season.

Two years after the Venice performance La Scala Milan presented its own Giulietta e Romeo with choreography by Filippo Beretti who also took on the role of Romeo. The ballet was probably in only one or two acts as it was one of three ballets on the evening.

An important production of Romeo e Julia by Ivan Ivanovitch Valberkh (or Walberg) took place in St. Petersburg, November 2, 1809. Born Ivan Lessogorov in Moscow in 1766, his name was changed to Valberkh by Catherine the Great. After receiving his diploma in ballet in 1786 he left Russia to study in Paris. He embraced the concepts of Noverre but disdained the choreographic style of Vestris. Valberkh created the Russian ballet d'action and found fame with his ballet of 1799, Le Nouveau Werther, inspired by Goethe, with music by Russian Serge Titov. Following this success he became director of a dance school where he had the students study not only dance but also singing, acting, playing an instrument and theater design. Recognition of his achievements brought him to the Bolshoi School in Moscow in 1807 to reorganize that school's curriculum. It was on his return to St. Petersburg that he presented his Romeo e Julia, a ballet in five acts with choirs inspired not by Shakespeare but by the opera Romeo et Juliette by German composer Daniel Steibelt. The music for the ballet was revised from the opera by Steibelt who had become director of the Opera francais in St. Petersburg.

Being a well known dancer and mime, Valberkh himself played Romeo. The plot was similar to the one we know today except for the ending. When Romeo returns to the tomb to be with Juliet he is discovered by her father. He is about to kill Romeo when Don Fernando (Juliet's betrothed) intervenes. The sound of the fighting awakens Juliet who throws herself in Romeo's arms, further infuriating her father. Don Fernando renounces his claim to the marriage of Juliet and persuades her father that she and Romeo should be married. There is reconciliation between the two families, and a joyous chorus concludes the ballet as it did the opera.

About 1811 another ballet in five acts, Romeo et Julie appeared on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Copenhagen, produced by renowned dancer Vincenzo Galeotti (then aged 78). The music was by Klaus Nielsen Schall; Juliet was danced by his sister in law Margrethe Schall. Romeo was Antoine Bournonville, father of the celebrated August Bournonville who would define the Danish style of ballet. Little is known of the ballet except that there was a large section devoted to pantomime and little dancing as a whole. At one point Romeo and Juliet embraced and held a pose like Amour and Psyche, while the organ and orchestra played.

Versions of Romeo and Juliet to Prokofiev’s music

Originally commissioned for the Kirov Ballet and then reassigned to the Bolshoi Ballet, the Prokofiev ballet was first performed in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1938, an event that went almost unnoticed. The first Soviet performance of the ballet was given at the Kirov Theatre on January 11, 1940 with choreography by Leonid Lavrovsky. Despite little hope for success the ballet was well received and has been popular ever since. The Lavrovsky ballet was presented by the Bolshoi Ballet, December 28, 1946.

Following the success of his Prince of the Pagodas for the La Scala ballet, John Cranko was invited to create a new work for that company. He chose Romeo and Juliet to the Prokofiev score. The young Carla Fracci was his Juliet with Mario Pistoni as Romeo. The first performance took place in 1958 at the Teatro Verde in Venice. It was mounted at La Scala, Milan in 1959, and Cranko restaged it for his own Stuttgart Ballet in 1962 with new designs by Jurgen Rose. Ray Barra and Marcia Haydee took the title roles. Cranko emphasizes the human drama over pyrotechnics; he believed that you could tell a story through dance without depending on operatic mime.

Despite the worldwide success of the Cranko version, England's Royal Ballet invited Kenneth MacMillan to create a new version for them. It is inevitable that by using the same score and being from similar backgrounds that the Cranko and MacMillan versions should share many elements. MacMillan originally choreographed his version with the young dancers Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable in mind, having worked with them on his ballet The Invitation. They were close to the right ages of the protagonists, and in Lynn Seymour he saw a spirited and turbulent personality that helped shape his image of Juliet contrasting a tender and humorous Romeo. The Royal Opera House management had other ideas, and so the premiere of the ballet took place with the older, but bigger box office names of Fonteyn and Nureyev who, by dint of their strong stage presence, imbued the work with their own characters.

Sir Frederick Ashton choreographed a Romeo and Juliet to Prokofiev's score for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1955. This was before the West had seen Lavrovsky's staging of the ballet, and his is therefore a very personal version. Lavrovsky's prominent street scenes, complete with their sword fights, was subordinate to the private tragedy of Ashton’s young lovers.

Nijinska and the Ballets Russes

Nijinska set her ballet backstage at Ballets Russes; the dancers were on an empty stage, the costumes being practice clothes. Juliet arrives at rehearsal late and drops her bag, spilling the contents all over the floor. Romeo enters dressed as an aviator, and an amorous pas de deux that includes humorous references to the Shakespeare tragedy follows. The couple escape the rehearsal studio by plane! A young George Balanchine provided the choreography for the entr'acte. It is said that the best effect was when the curtain was raised only one foot off the stage with just a series of footwork shown.

When the ballet was brought to Paris, the leaders of the Surrealist movement were incensed that two of their members would be involved with such a capitalistic enterprise. They organized a protest that disrupted the opening of the ballet. As the curtain rose on Miro's decor, there was an indescribable hubbub in the auditorium as leaflets of protest were showered on the audience from the balcony. In the melee that followed Lady Abdy seized the trumpet of one of the protesters who in response grabbed her dress and disrobed her. The curtain was lowered, the police evicted the troublemakers and the inferior ballet went on to huge box office success due to the scandal.

Tchaikovsky

Jean Cocteau

Although not a choreographer, Cocteau staged a version of Romeo and Juliet that depended on choreographed stage pictures. Cocteau staged a series of spectacles "to save the Parisian theater at whatever cost." Romeo and Juliet was seen as part of Comte Etienne de Beaumont's "Soirees de Paris", a series of events to benefit Leonide Massine, who after leaving Diaghilev's company found himself blacklisted by the impresario and unable to obtain work. Although the premiere took place in 1924 Cocteau had actually written his adaptation of the play in 1916, around the time he was given his first help with his creative endeavors by Diaghilev.

Cocteau wrote, "I have tried to indicate in this text that some of the action cannot be conveyed through the dialogue alone." Jean Hugo, who designed the costumes and set, stated that Cocteau called the piece "an essay in aesthetic surgery." The Shakespeare text was whittled down to the absolute essence; the balcony scene lasts hardly more than half a page. The story was a showcase for Cocteau to display his wit and invention. The setting was all black in keeping with traditions of Shakespeare’s day and to allow for flying and many other stage tricks. The stage hands were choreographed into the work, and a number of trained dancers were cast as "mobile parts." Cocteau himself took the role of Mercutio, a totally new experience for him and one he found both stimulating and terrifying.

Anthony Tudor

Maurice Béjart and the Ballet du Xxe. Siecle

Birgit Culberg

John Neumeier

Oscar Ariaz

In contrast to Neumeier who seeks to explain every psychological nuance of the story, Ariaz assumes that the audience already knows the story of Romeo and Juliet. As others before him, he also has pared down the characters in the story omitting among others, Benvolio, Friar Laurence and Lord and Lady Montague.

The ballet begins as an abstraction in practice clothes giving hints of a secret drama, much as many feel Balanchine's Serenade has a hidden story. A real death seems to take place on stage at which point the dancers put on Renaissance costumes. From this point on the ballet progresses with the real events that comprise the Romeo and Juliet story. The dancers change their costumes in full view of the audience. The major departure in this version is that Juliet is played by three different ballerinas representing different facets of Juliet, who often appear on stage together, even in the tomb where they dance a liebstod with Romeo, leading him to his eventual death. The ballet ends as it began with dancers in practice clothes in a dance for five couples seemingly in love.

Oscar Ariaz's Romeo and Juliet, set to the music of Prokofiev, was first presented in Buenos Aires in 1970 and was presented by the Joffrey Ballet in 1977.

The Music

Prokofiev and his ballet music

Prokofiev and Diaghilev met for the first time in London in 1914. As it was the shrewd and ultimately sagacious impresario’s practice to encourage young talent, Diaghilev presented the composer with his first ballet commission. Diaghilev put Prokofiev in touch with the poet Sergei Gorodetsky, telling him to create a ballet on a Russian fairy tale or prehistoric theme. Prokofiev selected for his subject the prehistoric nomads who roamed the Ukrainian steppes, the Scythians. The ballet was rejected by Diaghilev before its completion because it sought to emulate Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, and Diaghilev was looking for something to "outrage" the public with something new. However the ballet music, whose orchestral effects and subject have some similarities to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, was revamped into an orchestral suite. (It was to become Prokofiev's practice to derive orchestral suites and symphonies from music originally intended for the theater.) Newly entitled Scythian Suite: Ala and Lolli, Op. 20, it was introduced by the composer at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, January 29, 1916.

Diaghilev continued his connection with Prokofiev by arranging a piano recital in Rome in 1915. Despite the termination of his first assignment, he gave Prokofiev a second commission which resulted in the score for Chout (sometimes known as The Buffoon) to be choreographed by Massine. The piano score was completed in 1915, but in the meantime Massine left the Ballets Russes. Mikhail Larionov and Tadeo Slavinsky were subsequently chosen to collaborate on the choreography. The production was eventually mounted in May 1921. Diaghilev brought a group of patrons to a final dress rehearsal of the ballet in London that Prokofiev was conducting. Prokofiev considered it a working rehearsal and, wishing to be more comfortable, removed his jacket. Several elderly ladies from London high society, scandalized, rose to their feet and departed with their escorts. This was a signal for all the other invited guests to depart.

In 1925 Diaghilev asked Prokofiev to write a ballet on a "Soviet subject" that would reflect the contemporary life in Soviet Russia. Prokofiev met with Sergei Yakulov, a Soviet theatrical constructivist artist who was hired as set designer for the new ballet. They agreed the ballet should be a portrayal of the industrial progress of the USSR. Prokofiev gave the music the title Urignol - derived from U.R.S.S. and parodying Stravinsky’s Rossignol - but Diaghilev disliked the name. In the end the ballet was called Le Pas d'Acier (The Step of Steel). Despite trying, Diaghilev was unsuccessful in his quest to secure the services of a young Soviet choreographer; he eventually turned to Massine. Parisians eagerly anticipated a Bolshevik propaganda ballet. Although it was well received, the ballet was reviewed as "a weird work beginning with its title and ending with its music and choreography."

For Diaghilev's last Paris season of the Ballets Russes, Prokofiev composed the music for Prodigal Son with choreography by the young Balanchine. Opening May 21, 1929, it was a huge success in Paris and later Berlin and London.

During the summer of 1931 Prokofiev was commissioned to write the music for a ballet by Serge Lifar entitled Sur le Boryshene (On the Dnieper). Prokofiev dedicated the work to Diaghilev who had died in Venice in 1929. Despite being a collaboration of experienced and established artists, the ballet was not a success.

Romeo and Juliet

Prokofiev wrote, "In the latter part of 1934 there was talk of the Kirov Theatre of Leningrad staging a ballet of mine. I was interested in a lyrical subject. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was suggested. But the Kirov Theatre backed out and I signed a contract with the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre instead. In the spring of 1935 Radlov and I worked out a scenario, consulting with the choreographer on questions of ballet technique. The music was written in the course of the summer, but the Bolshoi Theatre declared it impossible to dance to and the contract was broken."

The Kirov Theatre had a purge of "avant garde" artists at this time, and Radlov was ousted as its director. The official reason for cancellation was that choreography to Shakespeare would be sacrilege.

Romeo and Juliet to the Prokofiev score was first performed in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1938, an event that went by almost unnoticed. Meanwhile, Prokofiev had preserved his music for Romeo and Juliet in two orchestral suites and ten piano pieces in 1936 and 1937. A third orchestral suite was arranged in 1946.

The first Soviet performance of the ballet was given at the Kirov Theatre on January 11, 1940. Preceding the first performance there were many disagreements between the choreographer, Leonid Lavrosky, and Prokofiev. The dancers failed to understand the music; and the orchestra, in a last-ditch effort to avoid a disaster, tried to cancel the show. Playing on the last lines of Shakespeare's play, a saying current in the theater was "There is no tale of greater woe than Prokofiev's music for Romeo." Galina Ulanova, the first Soviet to dance Juliet, said she wished for music that had "some melodic pattern of our own, something nearer to our own conception of how the love of Romeo and Juliet should be expressed." Despite so little hope for success the ballet was well received and has been popular ever since. The Lavrovsky ballet was finally presented by the Bolshoi Ballet December 28, 1946.

The score of Romeo and Juliet has a very strong structure based on the original libretto. This has presented choreographers with either a very strong blueprint to follow or too many restrictions if they are not inclined to agree with every detail. There were four hands in the making of the libretto. Prokofiev and his original collaborator and longtime associate Sergei Radlov were joined by playwright Adrian Piotrovsky and the choreographer Leonid Lavrovsky who made numerous changes.

In his autobiography Prokofiev writes, "There was quite a fuss at the time about our attempts to give Romeo and Juliet a happy ending - in the last act Romeo arrives a minute earlier, finds Juliet alive and everything ends well. The reasons for this bit of barbarism were purely choreographic: living people can dance, the dying cannot.....But what really caused me to change my mind about the whole thing was a remark someone made to me about the ballet: 'Strictly speaking, your music does not express any real joy at the end.' That was quite true. After several conferences with the choreographers, it was found that the tragic ending could be expressed in the dance and in due time the music for that ending was written."

Prokofiev wrote two other ballets, Cinderella (1945) and The Tale of the Stone Flower (1954). It is interesting to note that Prokofiev achieved much greater success for his ballets than for his operas on which he spent considerably more time.

World events of 1938, the premiere of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet