Romeo und Julia

• Dance

"Romeo and Juliet" was my first full-length narrative ballet in Hamburg. But even back when I was a dancer in John Cranko's company, I had thought about the material. I didn't want to draw my inspiration from the well-known choreographies of the "Romeo and Juliet" ballets, but directly from Shakespeare and the sources from which he developed the material. I was looking for a quasi-realistic scheme of motivation: how the characters could be, how they should be at a certain moment, why and how they reacted the way they did. This was to be made clear through visible situations – without words.

Originally, the opposites of activity and passivity and of innocence and experience were important to me. Juliet is naive and innocent at first, while Romeo is experienced. They exchange ideas as lovers, and each of them becomes the other, so to speak: Romeo is "disarmed" by love, Juliet finds her own way to activity. This could be told with the means of dance. At first it seems that Julia can't dance. Romeo, on the other hand, proves himself to be a skilled dancer in his first appearance. But he can no longer dance at Juliet's grave, and in the end, when Romeo is no longer alive, Juliet will no longer dance either. So I tried not to be constrained by ballet clichés, but to translate the rich human content of Shakespeare's play into movement.

John Neumeier


Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Choreography and production: John Neumeier
Stage design and costumes: Jürgen Rose

3 hours | 2 breaks
1st part: 60 minutes, 2nd part: 30 minutes, 3rd part: 45 minutes

PREMIERE:
Frankfurt Ballet, Frankfurt, February 14, 1971
PREMIERE IN HAMBURG:
Hamburg Ballet, January 6, 1974
PREMIERE NEW VERSION IN HAMBURG:
Hamburg Ballet, December 23, 1981

ORIGINAL CAST:
Julia: Marianne Kruuse
Romeo: Truman Finney
Mercutio: Max Midinet
Tybalt: Fred Howald
Benvolio: Maximo Barra
Countess Capulet: Beatrice Cordua
Count Capulet: Paul Herbinger
Count Paris: Ricardo Duse
Brother Lorenzo: Stephan Mettin
Julia's wet nurse: Gertrud Schmitz

GUEST PERFORMANCES:
1990 Genoa 2006 Cagliari 2016 Baden-Baden

IN REPERTOIRE:
Royal Danish Ballet
The Tokyo Ballet