A Shakespeare ballet

Sergei Prokofiev, composer; Romeo and Juliet; Kirov Orchestra, Leningrad; Valery Gergiev, conducting

I’ve never seen a production of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. We had to read it at some point during high school, but I don’t remember when. I don’t have a weakness for this type of Shakespeare. I prefer the comedies and the historical plays. Hamlet captures my attention. Probably because I’m one-quarter Danish.

Now, I have to back-pedal and say that I have seen Charles Gounod’s opera “Romeo et Juliette”. Does that count? The librettist wrote the words in French. Well, then no, I think. And we’ll just leave that there shall we?

Sergei Prokofiev wrote music for a ballet of “Romeo and Juliet” in 1935 for the Kirov Ballet. The first performance occurred on December 30 in 1938 in Brno, Czechoslovakia. Often, Mr. Prokofiev’s music doesn’t offer immediate appeal to the layman classical music lover. But, in this case, an expressive score delivers the perfect romantic tone to, admittedly, one of literature’s most passionate love stories.

Lamentably, I had a difficult time finding a copy of this CD cover. I don’t know that I have a more striking CD cover on my iPod. It features conductor Valery Gergiev, Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, with the beautiful Mariinsky Theatre interior as the backdrop.

Oddly enough, when Mr. Prokofiev and his artistic friends set out on this Shakespearean venture, they planned a “happy” ending to the synopsis. Can you imagine? It would have the same improbable effect as:

Scarlett: Rhett, Rhett! Rhett … if you go, where shall I go, what shall I do?

Rhett: Frankly, my dear, since you put it that way, let’s hitch up. Hawaii, here we come!

Credits: To William Shakespeare, for “Hamlet”. For some of the most beautiful English ever written and spoken, and for “Henry V”. For the romance of one hundred fifty-four sonnets, and “King Lear”.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!