ROMEO Notes - The National Ballet of Canada

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JOHN CRANKO’S BALLET John Cranko, the creator of such masterful story ballets as Onegin and The Taming of the Shrew, staged his production of Romeo and Juliet for The National Ballet of Canada in the spring of 1964. Cranko was working in England with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet when Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet made its first visit to London in 1956. Cranko witnessed both the technical skills and great artistry of the Russian dancers, as well as their renowned production of Romeo and Juliet at Covent Garden. It was this production that inspired Cranko to create his own version of the ballet. Cranko first staged William Shakespeare’s play as a ballet in 1958 for the ballet company of La Scala, Milan. The premiere of this production took place on July 26, 1958, at the open-air amphitheatre Teatro Verde on the island of San Giorgio in Venice, Italy. The sets for the production were by Nicola Benois, son of the Ballets Russes designer Alexandre Benois.There Cranko cast a very young, unknown ballerina, the 21-year-old Carla Fracci, in the role of Juliet. On December 2, 1962, Cranko staged a new version of the ballet for his own company, the Stuttgart Ballet. This production featured sets and costumes by a young German designer, Jürgen Rose, marking the beginning of many future collaborations between choreographer and designer. For his Juliet, Cranko cast the young Marcia Haydée, who was soon to be hailed as one of the world’s leading dramatic ballerinas. In 1964, Cranko travelled toToronto to mount Romeo and Juliet on The National Ballet of Canada. He was an old friend and colleague of the company’s founding Artistic Director, Celia Franca. The Canadian premiere of the National Ballet’s production of Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet took place at Montréal’s Place des Arts on April 14, 1964, with guest artists from the Stuttgart Ballet, Marcia Haydée and Ray Barra, in the title roles and with Celia Franca as Lady Capulet. Commenting on that opening night in Montréal, Sydney Johnson wrote in the Montréal Star: “As far as I am concerned, last night was the greatest night in the 13-year history of The National Ballet of Canada.” The company then took Romeo and Juliet home to Toronto and marked the National Ballet’s debut at the O’Keefe Centre (now the Hummingbird Centre). It was the first large-scale 20th-century ballet as well as the most lavish to enter the company’s repertoire and was deliberately chosen to suit the large stage of the O’Keefe Centre. The first Toronto performance, on April 21, 1964, starred Galina Samsova and Earl Kraul in the leading roles. So successful was this production that it was filmed for television in 1965 by Norman Campbell starring 19-yearold Veronica Tennant as Juliet and Earl Kraul as Romeo. The production won the Prix René Barthelemy at the International Television Festival in Monte Carlo in 1966. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the National Ballet garnered international praise for its performances of Romeo and Juliet, touring the production to Expo ‘70 in Osaka, Japan, to Washington, D.C., Mexico City and throughout Canada. However in 1973, a fire in the National Ballet’s wardrobe department destroyed all of the sets and costumes for Romeo and Juliet and the ballet, which had become a signature piece for the company, left the repertoire. In 1976, as part of the National Ballet’s 25th anniversary celebrations, Romeo and Juliet was revived. It was first performed at the Olympic Arts Festival in Montréal in July of 1976 and later performed in Toronto that November. For a special performance on November 14, 1976 many former National Ballet dancers came out of retirement to appear in the performance: Lilian Jarvis danced the role of Juliet, Hazaros Surmeyan danced Romeo, Yves Cousineau played Tybalt and Celia Franca appeared as Lady Capulet. Romeo and Juliet was re-designed to spectacular effect by Susan Benson in 1995 and it is this production that the company dances today.This season, Romeo and Juliet marks the National Ballet’s final performances at the Hummingbird Centre before moving to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. this page: veronica tennant as juliet and earl kraul as romeo in the cbc production, 1965; celia franca as lady capulet and lilian jarvis as juliet, 1976. opposite: sonia rodriguez as juliet. photos by barry gray, andrew oxenham, cylla von tiedemann
SERGEI PROKOFIEV’S MUSIC “I have taken special pains to achieve a simplicity which will, I hope, reach the hearts of all listeners. If people find no melody or no emotion in this work of mine, I shall feel very sorry; but I am sure that they will sooner or later.” — Sergei Prokofiev on Romeo and Juliet Today Sergei Prokofiev’s score for Romeo and Juliet is considered to be the quintessential rendering of William Shakespeare’s timeless tale and one of the most popular of all ballet compositions. However, Prokofiev’s original composition of Romeo and Juliet was heavily criticized and it was many years before it was finally accepted and performed by a ballet company. In 1934, the Russian-born Prokofiev was commissioned by the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad to write a score, possibly based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, to be choreographed by Rostislav Zacharov. The Communist regime demanded that the end of Shakespeare’s play be changed and that the ballet be given a happy ending, to which Prokofiev took offence.The score was written specifically as narrative dancedrama and was meticulously matched to the scenario by Prokofiev and the Kirov’s stage director, Sergey Radlov. It was to be a lavish, spectacular production and Prokofiev’s first full-length ballet. Though Prokofiev’s score was completed on September 8, 1935, problems soon led to the Kirov Theatre backing out of the project. The ballet was then to be staged by Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. However, the Bolshoi found the music unsuitable for dance and rejected it. The dancers, used to the tuneful dance rhythms of Tchaikovsky, had difficulty with Prokofiev’s unconventional rhythms and orchestration. The first performance of Romeo and Juliet to Prokofiev’s music took place in Brno, Czechoslovakia, on December 30, 1938, with choreography by the little-known Vania Psota. Two years later, the Kirov Ballet, following numerous discussions with Prokofiev and alterations in the score, premiered Romeo and Juliet to choreography by Leonid Lavrovsky. The score was considered radical by many Russian musicians, who feared the worst upon the ballet’s premiere. The time was nonetheless right, and the ballet proved a resounding success and was later staged in Moscow by the Bolshoi Ballet in 1946. Few composers have created full-length ballet scores, particularly in the 20th century. As such, Prokofiev follows in the tradition of such well-known ballet composers as Tchaikovsky. Writes choreographer Lavrovsky: “Prokofiev carried on where Tchaikovsky left off. He developed and elaborated the principles of symphonism in ballet music.” The score for Romeo and Juliet is both dramatic and symphonic, not unlike Tchaikovsky’s scores for Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. But, whereas Tchaikovsky gave musical selections dance names – pas de deux, pas de cinq, Russian dance – and interspersed his work with entertaining dance divertissements, Prokofiev linked his composition of 53 sections or items with the dramatic rather than the dance elements, naming his musical selections after the characters and situations they depicted. So Romeo and Juliet’s plot and music are closely intertwined; its dances are not simply entertainment but an integral part of the drama. As in Adolphe Adam’s score for Giselle, musical leitmotifs, portraits of the characters, are also prevalent in Romeo and Juliet, though in a less structured fashion and with greater variance and levels of depth. These leitmotifs include seven distinct themes for Juliet that outline various aspects of her developing personality and that incorporate slow tempi, strings and woodwinds. From the moment Prokofiev introduces her, Juliet is a girl brimming with youthful play but overshadowed by a foreboding doom. Prokofiev carefully creates atmosphere in his composition, from the lively, robust street scenes of Verona, to the lush and romantic love duets. The music for the first meeting of Romeo and Juliet is a madrigal, a love poem with a cantabile theme for violins and violas. Suddenly, Prokofiev has turned a young, playful girl into a woman in love. Later, in the balcony scene, their love is furthered in a lyrical adagio and bonded in a marriage scene that combines both the calm of their reason and their foreboding tragedy. It culminates in the bedroom scene, which also becomes their farewell. by sharon vanderlinde the national ballet of canada The Walter Carsen Centre for the national ballet of canada 470 Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario m5v 3k4 416-345-9686 national.ballet.ca
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Page 5: ACT III Scene 1 Juliet’s Bedroom

ROMEO Notes - The National Ballet of Canada

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