Romeo and Juliet (Op. 64) (Russian: Ромео и Джульетта) is a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Music from the ballet was extracted by Prokofiev as three suites for orchestra and as a piano work.
Based on a synopsis created by Adrian Piotrovsky (who first suggested the subject to Prokofiev) and Sergey Radlov, the ballet in its original form was completed by Prokofiev in September 1935, on commission by...
more
Romeo and Juliet (Op. 64) (Russian: Ромео и Джульетта) is a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Music from the ballet was extracted by Prokofiev as three suites for orchestra and as a piano work.
Based on a synopsis created by Adrian Piotrovsky (who first suggested the subject to Prokofiev) and Sergey Radlov, the ballet in its original form was completed by Prokofiev in September 1935, on commission by the Kirov Ballet. The original version had a "happy" ending, but was never publicly mounted, partly due to increased fear and caution in the musical and theatrical community in the aftermath of the two notorious Pravda editorials criticising Shostakovich and other "degenerate modernists". Suites of the ballet music were heard in Moscow and the United States, but the full ballet premiered in Brno, Czechoslovakia, on 30 December 1938. It is better known today from the significantly revised version that was first presented at the Kirov in...
less
