Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev)

Prokofiev’s *Romeo and Juliet* (Op. 64) is a ballet adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy. The composer later extracted three orchestral suites and a solo piano suite from the score.

The ballet was first drafted in 1935, based on a scenario by Adrian Piotrovsky and Sergey Radlov that followed the “drambalet” model—a dramatised style promoted at the Kirov Ballet over purely choreographic spectacle. Piotrovsky had originally suggested the subject to Prokofiev. After Radlov resigned from the Kirov in June 1934, a new contract was signed with Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, with Piotrovsky staying on. However, the original libretto ended happily, contradicting Shakespeare, which drew criticism from Soviet cultural officials. The Bolshoi’s staff was then overhauled on orders from Platon Kerzhentsev, head of the Committee on Arts Affairs, and the production was postponed indefinitely. The ballet’s delayed Soviet premiere until 1940 may also have been linked to *Pravda*’s 1936 denunciation of Dmitri Shostakovich and other “degenerate modernists,” including Piotrovsky. Conductor Yuri Fayer, who frequently met with Prokofiev during the composition, urged a return to the traditional tragic ending; he later conducted the ballet’s first Bolshoi performance.

Excerpts from the ballet were performed in Moscow and the United States, but the full work premiered on 30 December 1938 at the Mahen Theatre in Brno (then Czechoslovakia). That single-act production used music mainly from the first two suites. Prokofiev, under travel restrictions, could not attend.

Prokofiev himself described the ballet’s creation. Returning to Leningrad in late 1934 to negotiate with the Kirov, he sought a lyrical ballet scenario. Piotrovsky suggested *Pelléas et Mélisande*, *Tristan und Isolde*, and *Romeo and Juliet*; Prokofiev immediately chose the last. The three agreed to write the libretto, with Rostislav Zakharov as producer. No contract was signed with the Kirov, so Prokofiev went to Moscow, where Bolshoi chief conductor Golovanov offered a contract that summer. Prokofiev worked at the Bolshoi’s holiday home in Polenovo, nearly finishing the ballet using themes composed that spring. An audition at the theatre was unsuccessful, and the ballet was not staged then. After the Bolshoi rejected it, Zakharov left the project. The Kirov eventually staged it in 1940, with Leonid Lavrovsky adding significantly to the libretto; Prokofiev later credited Lavrovsky as co-librettist.

The version best known today premiered at the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad on 11 January 1940, with choreography by Lavrovsky and starring Galina Ulanova as Juliet and Konstantin Sergeyev as Romeo. Over Prokofiev’s objections, Lavrovsky made substantial changes to the score. This production won international acclaim and a Stalin Prize. In 1955, Mosfilm released a film version with Ulanova and Yuri Zhdanov, which won Best Lyrical Film and was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The original Kirov cast also included Robert Gerbek as Tybalt and Andrei Lopukhov as Mercutio.

Later notable productions include Frederick Ashton’s 1955 staging for the Royal Danish Ballet; John Cranko’s 1962 version for the Stuttgart Ballet, which brought the company worldwide fame and premiered in the United States in 1969; and Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s 1965 production for the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, with Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in the leads—a partnership that revived Fonteyn’s career. Also in 1965, Oleg Vinogradov staged a version in Russia while serving as assistant ballet master to Pyotr Gusev. John Neumeier, partly inspired by Cranko, created a Frankfurt version in 1971, followed by a Hamburg premiere in 1974 as his first full-length ballet with that company. In 1977, Rudolf Nureyev choreographed a new *Romeo and Juliet* for the London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet), dancing Romeo opposite Eva Evdokimova and Patricia Ruanne as Juliet. The production toured internationally, with Evdokimova performing in London and Paris, and remains a staple of the ENB repertoire; its most recent revival, staged by Ruanne and Frede, was in 2010.