Romeo And Juliet Ballet Performance Analysis

Hunter Klingener 2/11/18

Romeo & Juliet

The ballet performance that I had the opportunity of viewing being streamed live at the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow Russia was a beautiful display of the story of Romeo and Juliet being told through dance. The performance Romeo and Juliet had been produced by Sergei Prokofiev. The performance was choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky who had completely changed the style of ballet. The show took place on a brand-new stage for the Bolshoi theatre, which had been built and opened on October 29th of 2002. Although the world premier of this version of the ballet had taken place in Toronto on November 16, 2011. Originally the Bolshoi theatre had begun as a private theatre of the Moscow prosecutor

This theatre had been built in nearly record time, taking less than six months and had been the first public theatre of this size to be opened in Moscow. Although the theatre had been turned over to the Prince’s partner Maddox alone, which resulted in Maddox becoming steeped in debt. In 1802-1803 the Theatre was then turned over to Prince M. Volkonsky, who had owned one of Moscow’s best private theatre companies at the time. However, shortly after, in 1804 the Prince had been appointed as salaried director after the theatre had been transferred back to the Government Loan

Mr. Ratmansky’s ballet version of Romeo and Juliet is human-scaled and poetic. He expected a lot out of his performers and he demanded much of them, although he was soft-spoken and formal with his dancers. Ratmansky wished for the dancers to almost be ahead of the music, to create an impression of spontaneity and freshness, something that the dancers appeared very eager to try. Ratmansky had a desire to create something new for the repertory, with much more fast paced phrases and unconventional