Choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Royal Ballet production of

Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''. , group=n ( – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who l ...

's ''

Romeo and Juliet ''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's ...

'' premiered at the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

on 9 February 1965.

Background

Kenneth MacMillan Sir Kenneth MacMillan (11 December 192929 October 1992) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer who was artistic director of the Royal Ballet in London between 1970 and 1977, and its principal choreographer from 1977 until his death. Ea ...

had previously choreographed the balcony scene for Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable to dance in September 1964 for Canadian Television. This scene provided an essential part of the ballet's overall structure. Seymour stated that the balcony scene pas de deux only took three rehearsals to fully choreograph. This experience made him seem a good candidate to choreograph the entire ballet for Covent Garden, when the Soviet Union refused to allow Leonid Lavrovsky's classic production to tour to London. MacMillan prepared his version with the blessing of

Frederick Ashton Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton (17 September 190418 August 1988) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue. Determined to be a dancer despite the oppositio ...

. MacMillan only had five months to choreograph the full ballet as

The Royal Ballet The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded ...

hoped to perform Romeo and Juliet in its upcoming American tour. He, Seymour, and Gable planned the ballet around the characters and their pas de deuxs. They envisioned Juliet as the headstrong character, making decisions, while Romeo was "swept off his feet by love". Nicholas Georgiadis designed the set and costumes with specific intent regarding the characters and feel of the performance. The imposing, large set designs were utilized to emphasize how small and vulnerable Juliet was in comparison and position her and Romeo as helpless against the society they live in. MacMillan and Georgiadias were inspired by Italian

Quattrocento The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encom ...

paintings and architecture; Shakespeare, and

Franco Zeffirelli Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli (; 12 February 1923 – 15 June 2019) was an Italian stage and film director, producer, production designer and politician. He was one of the most significant opera and theatre directors of the post–World War II e ...

's 1960 Romeo and Juliet production. MacMillan also took inspiration from Cranko's Romeo and Juliet to include the rowdy harlots in the market scenes.

Premiere performance

Kenneth MacMillan's Royal Ballet production of

's ''

'' premiered at the

on 9 February 1965. Though MacMillan had conceived the ballet for Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable, for "bureaucratic reasons"

Margot Fonteyn Dame Margaret Evelyn de Arias Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, DBE ( Hookham; 18 May 191921 February 1991), known by the stage name Margot Fonteyn (), was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with th ...

and Rudolph Nureyev danced the opening night, to MacMillan's disappointment. The casting change was disheartening not only to MacMillan, but to the entire company, contributing to MacMillan and Seymour's eventual move away from the Royal Ballet and Gable's transition away from dancing entirely. Mainly, Fonteyn and Nureyev were given the leading roles because of their fame and box office draw. The impresario for the American tour,

Sol Hurok Sol Hurok (also Solomon Israilevich Hurok; born Solomon Izrailevich Gurkov, Russian language, Russian Соломон Израилевич Гурков; April 9, 1888March 5, 1974) was a 20th-century American impresario. Early life Hurok was born ...

said that the ballet would only be included and profitable in the US if Fonteyn and Nureyev were given the title roles. Fonteyn and Nureyev brought new life to the characters, as did the set and costume designs by Nicholas Georgiadis; Fonteyn, considered to be near retirement, embarked upon a rejuvenated career with a partnership with Nureyev. Lynn Seymour left the Royal Ballet for three years after this slight to dance with the German Opera Ballet in West Berlin, but she returned in 1970 to dance many principal roles.

Response

The first production of Romeo and Juliet was met with overwhelmingly positive critical and box office response. Fonteyn and Nureyev received 43 curtain calls, eventually needing the safety curtain to descend in order to encourage the audience to leave the theater. Critics agreed across the board that the ballet was a fantastic addition to the Royal Ballet's repertoire as well as an accomplishment for MacMillan. The Observer, The Daily Mail, and the Sunday Telegraph were a few of the magazines and papers to review the performance. Andrew Porter with The Financial Times, who was the first critic to discuss the last minute casting change, noted that the ballet could not be fully understood until Seymour performed the role designed for her.

Following performances

Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable danced the lead roles in the second cast, also receiving rave reviews, though not the same level of overt audience appreciation. They were followed by three other pairings in the first tour and many more throughout the decades since. The first five performances of Romeo and Juliet have remained highly lauded by critics. Alastair Macaulay spoke of Fonteyn and Nureyev's performance as "If there was a single moment in my life that turned me into a ballet obsessive, that was it". In the New York Times in 2007. He also lauded Seymour's rebellious Juliet. Romeo and Juliet has become a staple of the Royal Ballet's Repertoire. MacMillan went on to restage the ballet for other companies around the world such as The

Royal Swedish Ballet The Royal Swedish Ballet is one of the oldest ballet companies in Europe. Based in Stockholm, Sweden, Gustav III of Sweden, King Gustav III founded the ballet in 1773 as a part of his national cultural project in response to the French and Italian ...

American Ballet Theatre American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant. Through 2019, it had an annual eight-week season at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center) in the spr ...

, and the Birmingham Royal Ballet. The Birmingham Royal Ballet also included a new set and costume design by Paul Andrews.

Film

The production was filmed by

Paul Czinner Paul Czinner (30 May 1890 – 22 June 1972) was a Hungarian-born British writer, film director, and producer. Biography Czinner was born to a Jewish family in Budapest, Austria-Hungary. After studying literature and philosophy at the Universi ...

and received a cinematic release in 1966. The star-studded first cast with Fonteyn and Nureyev performed. The film was one of a series of movies financed between Rank and the NFFC. It received some strong reviews but was a box office disappointment. Since then it has been live streamed and recorded multiple times, the most recent of which being the 2012 filmed production of the ballet starring Lauren Cuthbertson and Federico Bonelli, filmed by Ross MacGibbon. A 90-minute abridgment by writer-producers (and dancers) Michael Nunn and William Trevitt for BBC television was broadcast in 2020 on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

Great Performances ''Great Performances'' is a television anthology series dedicated to the performing arts; the banner has been used to televise plays, musicals, opera, ballet, concerts, as well as occasional documentaries. It is produced by the PBS member statio ...

Original cast

Juliet Juliet Capulet () is the female protagonist in William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. A 13-year-old girl, Juliet is the only daughter of the patriarch of the House of Capulet. She falls in love with the male protagonist Ro ...

* Rudolph Nureyev,

Romeo Romeo Montague () is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. The son of Characters in Romeo and Juliet#Lord Montague, Lord Montague and his wife, Characters in Romeo and Juliet#Lady Montague, Lady Montague, he ...

* David Blair,

Mercutio Mercutio ( , ) is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's 1597 tragedy, ''Romeo and Juliet''. He is a close friend to Romeo and a blood relative to Prince Escalus and Count Paris. As such, Mercutio is one of the named characters in the ...

* Desmond Doyle, Tybalt *

Anthony Dowell Sir Anthony James Dowell (born 16 February 1943) is a retired British ballet dancer and a former artistic director of the Royal Ballet. He is widely recognized as one of the great ''danseurs nobles'' of the twentieth century. Early life and tr ...

, Benvolio *

Derek Rencher Derek Rencher (6 June 1932 – 20 December 2014) was a British ballet dancer. A commanding figure among Royal Ballet character dancers for more than four decades, he was probably the most prolific performer in the company's history. Early life a ...

, Paris * Michael Somes, Lord Capulet * Julia Farron, Lady Capulet * Leslie Edwards, Escalus, Prince of Verona * Georgina Parkinson, Rosaline * Ronald Hynd, Friar Laurence * Franklin Whyte, Lord Montague * Betty Kavanagh, Lady Montague Source:

Notes

Sources

*Gottlieb, Robert. ''Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and Some Uncategorizable Extras''. Pantheon, 2008. *Parry, Jann. ''Different Drummer: The Life of Kenneth MacMillan''. London: Faber & Faber, 2009. * *Kavanagh, Julie. Nureyev: The Life. VINTAGE, 2008 *MacGibbon, Ross, dir. Romeo and Juliet. 1965; London, UK: Royal Opera House, 2012. DVD
Romeo and Juliet Pas De Deux.
Kenneth MacMillan. MacMillan Estate. Accessed 7 June 2020.
Romeo and Juliet.
Kenneth MacMillan. MacMillan Estate. Accessed 7 June 2020. *Macaulay, Alastair. "Confessions of a 'Romeo' Fiend". The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Apr. 2007 *The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Lynn Seymour". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 4 March 2019

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Romeo And Juliet (Macmillan) Ballets by Kenneth MacMillan Ballets by Sergei Prokofiev 1965 ballets Ballets created for The Royal Ballet Ballets based on Romeo and Juliet Ballets about suicide