Romeo and Juliet Mar 15 Apr 8, 2018 Program Background Conducted by Gavriel Heine (Mar 15 25) and Mischa Santora (Mar 29 Apr 8) Choreography: John Cranko Based on the tragedy by William Shakespeare Music: Sergei Prokofiev Sets and Costume Design: Jürgen Rose Lighting Design: Kevin Dreyer Staging: Jane Bourne Supervised by Reid Anderson Copyright: Dieter Graefe World premiere: Dec 2, 1962, Stuttgart Ballet Boston Ballet premiere: Feb 14, 2008, Wang Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts Synopsis ACT I Scene One: The Market Place As day breaks, Romeo, son of Montague, is found declaring his love to the fair Rosaline. With the sunrise the market place fills with townspeople among whom are members of two rival families, the Capulets and the Montagues. Tempers flare and a quarrel develops. The Duke of Verona appears and warns the two factions that death will be the ultimate punishment if the feud does not stop. Romeo and his friends Benvolio and Mercutio make reluctant peace with Tybalt, a kinsman of the Capulets. Scene Two: Juliet s ante-room in the Capulets house Juliet receives her first ball dress from her mother, Lady Capulet, and learns that she is to meet the nobleman Paris to whom she will be betrothed on the following day. Now she must bid farewell to her childhood. Scene Three: Outside the Capulets house Guests arrive at the Capulets ball, among them Rosaline. Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio, masked, follow her to the ball. Scene Four: The Ballroom Juliet is introduced to the guests and to Paris. While dancing with Paris, she and Romeo behold one another. It is love at first sight. Tybalt, suspecting Romeo s identity, tries to incite a quarrel, but is prevented from doing so by Juliet s father who abides by the laws of hospitality.
Scene Five: Juliet s balcony On the balcony outside her bedroom Juliet dreams of Romeo. He appears below in the garden. They declare their eternal love. ACT II Scene One: The Market Place A carnival is in progress in the town square. Romeo, daydreaming, & Juliet is indifferent to the gaiety around him. Juliet s nurse brings him a letter from Juliet asking him to meet her in the chapel of Friar Laurence. Mar 15 Apr 8, 2018 Scene Two: The Chapel In his cloister, Friar Laurence joins the young lovers in marriage. Program Background Scene Three: The Market Place At the height of the carnival, Romeo returns to the square. Tybalt accosts him, but Romeo declines to fight. Mercutio, angered, engages in a duel with Tybalt, and dies at his hands. Romeo, stunned and distraught, turns on Tybalt and kills him. ACT III Scene One: The Bedroom In Juliet s bedroom the lovers are awakened by the sunrise, and Romeo, who has been exiled, must leave Juliet and Verona. Lord and Lady Capulet enter with Paris, but Juliet rejects him. Scene Two: The Chapel Juliet, appealing for help to Friar Laurence, receives a potion from him that will place her in a death-like sleep. He explains that Romeo will find her in the family tomb and from there they can escape together. Scene Three: The Bedroom Juliet s parents return and Juliet agrees to the marriage with Paris. Left alone, Juliet takes the sleeping potion and is thought to be dead when her family and friends discover her. Scene Four: The Capulet family crypt Romeo, who has not received Friar Laurence s message revealing the plan, believes Juliet to be dead and rushes to her tomb. There he finds the mourning Paris and kills him. Embracing Juliet for the last time, he plunges his dagger into his heart. Juliet awakens to find Romeo dead. Grief-stricken, she kills herself. Synopsis courtesy of Stuttgart Ballet
BIO: John Cranko, Choreographer John Cranko was born on August 15, 1927 in Rustenburg, South Africa. He received his dance education mainly at the University of Cape Town, where he also choreographed his first ballet to Stravinsky s Suite from The Soldier s Tale. In 1946, he continued his studies at the Sadler s Wells School in London and shortly afterwards became a member of the Sadler s Wells Ballet (subsequently the Royal Ballet). In 1947, Cranko made an acclaimed choreography to Debussy s Children s Corner for the Sadler s Wells Ballet; from 1949 on he devoted himself exclusively to choreography, producing extremely successful ballets mostly for the Sadler s Wells Ballet. In 1955, he choreographed La Belle Hélène for the Paris Opera Ballet and in 1957 he created his first full-length ballet, The Prince of the Pagodas, for the Royal Ballet. In 1961, John Cranko was appointed ballet director in Stuttgart by Walter Erich Schaefer, the General Director of the Wuerttemberg State Theatre (today s Stuttgart State Theater). At the beginning of his time in Stuttgart, Cranko created short ballets and gathered together a group of dancers, among them Ray Barra, Egon Madsen, Richard Cragun, Birgit Keil and, most importantly, a young Brazilian dancer named Marcia Haydée who was to become his prime muse and inspiration. The breakthrough for Cranko came in December 1962 with the world premiere of Romeo and Juliet, which was highly praised by critics and audience alike. In Stuttgart, Cranko created many small choreographic jewels such as Jeu de cartes and Opus I, as well as his symphonic ballet Initials R.B.M.E., but it was with his dramatic story ballets such as Onegin, The Taming of the Shrew, Poéme de l Extase and Traces that Cranko secured his place in the pantheon of great choreographers. In addition, he encouraged young dancers in his company including Jiří Kylián and John Neumeier to try their hand at choreography. Cranko s gift for nuanced story-telling, clear dramatic structure and his exquisite mastery of the art of the pas de deux conquered New York audiences during a triumphant season at the Metropolitan Opera in 1969. Worldwide acclaim soon followed, as Cranko and his young company toured the globe. Cranko's idea to establish a ballet school in Stuttgart where talented young dancers would be trained in close contact with the Ballet Company became reality 10 years after his arrival in Stuttgart. The John Cranko School, named after its founder in 1974, was officially opened on December 1, 1971, and was the first school in West Germany that offered a complete education in classical dance recognized with a state diploma. Today more than half the company s dancers are graduates of the John Cranko School. John Cranko died unexpectedly at age 45 on June 26, 1973, on a return flight from a successful U.S.A. tour. In his 12 short years as a director he laid the foundation for what was to become one of the world s leading ballet companies, a company with a tremendously diverse repertory and world-class dancers.
BIOS: Guest Conductors for Romeo & Juliet GAVRIEL HEINE, guest conducting Mar 15 25, 2018 Gavriel Heine is currently a resident conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia and Music Director of Northern Lights Festival Opera in Minnesota, USA. Born in the United States, he is the first American citizen to have graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory. Heine was one of the last students of the legendary conducting professor Ilya Musin at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, and follows a long line of conductors who were deeply influenced by the great exponent of the Leningrad school of conducting. In 2007, Valery Gergiev invited Heine to make his debut at the Mariinsky Theatre, where he has since led over 400 performances of opera, ballet, and symphonic repertoire. He has appeared with the company on tour at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, The Kennedy Center, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa, Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As a guest conductor he has worked with the Sinfonieorchester Basel, La Verdi Orchestra of Milan, Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, the Athens State Orchestra, The Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra and the Mikhailovsky Theatre, among others. He has led rehearsals with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Heine took part in a televised masterclass with Valery Gergiev and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra at De Doelen in Rotterdam, and was chosen by the League of American Orchestras to lead the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra at the 2013 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview in Jacksonville, Florida. This season he will conduct on the Mariinsky Ballet s two-week U.S. tour (Segerstrom Center, Costa Mesa and The Kennedy Center, Washington DC) and will make his conducting debut with Boston Ballet (Romeo & Juliet). MISCHA SANTORA, guest conducting Mar 29 Apr 8, 2018 Mischa Santora is one of the most innovative and entrepreneurial conductors of his generation. A champion of new music, he recently premiered works by Sally Beamish, Timo Andres, and Steve Heitzeg with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. In addition to his busy conducting schedule, Santora is the artistic director of the acclaimed Spotlight Concerts at MacPhail Center for Music, doubling its number of events for this season. As the artistic director of the Minneapolis Music Company, he curates innovate and interdisciplinary performances around the Twin Cities, alongside dynamic performing arts residencies offered to area public schools. Santora's recent composition activities include music for theatrical productions, orchestral works, and soundtracks for podcasts and commercial production music. Santora is the founder of a promising audio/tech start-up SONICITY, offering customizable high fidelity music for creative professionals. In North America, Santora has appeared with the Philadelphia, Minnesota, and Louisville Orchestras; the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Houston, National, New Jersey, Kansas City, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Richmond, North Carolina, Des Moines, Hartford, Princeton, Midland (Michigan), Eugene, Kitchener-Waterloo, and Hamilton (Ontario) Symphonies; as well as the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. In Europe and the Middle East, he has led the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Basel and Lucerne Symphony Orchestras, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Matáv Symphony, the Miskolc Symphony, the Hungarian National Symphony Orchestra's Chorus, the Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra.
Romeo & Juliet Press Quotes "With its passion, its poetry, its politics, and its profusion of richly drawn subsidiary characters, Romeo and Juliet is a natural for the dance stage. Couple Shakespeare s play with Sergei Prokofiev s acerbic, doom-drenched score and you would be hard pressed to find a better ballet. Certainly you would be challenged to find a better production than the one Boston Ballet opened at the Boston Opera House Thursday evening, where the stars were Misa Kuranaga s feathery Juliet, Yury Yanowsky s choleric Tybalt, and the Boston Ballet Orchestra. (Jeffrey Gantz, The Boston Globe, November 5, 2011) Cranko s version looks fine on the company because of the emphasis on story-telling that calls for strong acting as well as dancing skills, shared by these performers. (Iris Fanger, The Patriot Ledger, November 5, 2011) Boston Ballet s gorgeous production highlights elegant choreography and vivid storytelling. (Karen Campbell, The Boston Globe, September 11, 2011) Here at least, is a ballet to please virtually everyone. Cranko s Romeo and Juliet is arguably the best treatment, at least in the West, of Prokofiev s celebrated ballet score. (Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, July 9, 1998)