Capping its Fall Season with the Company's 40th consecutive year performing The Nutcracker, Boston Ballet opens its 2008 winter/spring season with the Company premiere of John Cranko's Romeo & Juliet. The 2008 season will feature Boston Ballet in classical story ballets, world premieres from on-the-rise contemporary choreographers, and modern masterpieces.
The Company launches its 2008 season on Valentine's Day with John Cranko's acclaimed staging of Romeo & Juliet. With this production, Boston Ballet becomes only the second U.S. ballet company to perform Cranko's Romeo & Juliet and the only American company to have three of Cranko's greatest works as part of its extensive repertoire (The Taming of The Shrew, Onegin and Romeo & Juliet). This is the third full-length masterpiece by Cranko to enter Boston Ballet's repertory. Romeo & Juliet is followed by Next Generation, which features the world premiere of three new ballets and the U.S. and Company premiere of Ein von Viel.
Romeo & Juliet
Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Choreography: John Cranko
February 14-17; February 28-March 2, 2008
Cranko's Romeo & Juliet premiered in 1962 and was first performed by the Stuttgart Ballet. His exquisitely rendered ballet, set to Sergei Prokofiev's magnificent score, is an inspired realization of William Shakespeare's timeless tale. While Prokofiev's original composition initially faced heavy criticism, it has become one of the most popular of all ballet compositions.
When the Stuttgart Ballet danced the American premiere of John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet in 1969, Clive Barnes wrote in The New York Times that this staging of Prokofiev's score "is, quite simply, the best of a surprisingly distinguished bunch. Many choreographers have attempted the score . . . but it has been left to Cranko to give the work its complete fulfillment." -- www.bostonballet.org
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