P6 – ROMEO & JULIET

Ashton’s Romeo & Juliet First Performed by the Royal Danish Ballet – May 19, 1955
Ashton’s Romeo & Juliet First Performed by The Sarasota Ballet – March 27, 2020

For one of the most popular ballets in the world, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet got off to a complicated start. Commissioned by Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet and then by Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet, the score was composed surprisingly quickly in the summer of 1935 as the composer was completing his plans to return to the Soviet Union. But problems of various kinds intervened and it wasn’t until January 1940, after some contentious revisions, that the Kirov finally staged the ballet, choreographed by Leonid Lavrovsky with Galina Ulanova as Juliet and Konstantin Sergeyev as Romeo. It proved a triumph and was soon moved to the Bolshoi. (A shorter version, using only the two suites Prokofiev arranged in 1936-7, had earlier been staged in Brno, Czechoslovak, by Vania Psota in 1938.)

Other versions gradually followed, by Dimitri Parlic in Belgrade (1948) and Margarita Froman in Zagreb (1949), while the 1954 film with Ulanova and Yuri Zhdanov did much to spread its fame abroad. The first production outside the Soviet orbit came in May 1955 by Sir Frederick Ashton for the Royal Danish Ballet, which emphasized the score’s lyrical qualities and focused on the lovers in three extended pas de deux while also showing the power and threat of the warring families. After four performances that August in Edinburgh, the ballet proved a great success on the company’s 1956 American tour, where only the suites had been heard, a success repeated on their 1960 and 1965 tours.

Additional stagings soon proliferated, including those by Serge Lifar (1955), John Cranko (1958), Kenneth MacMillan (1965), and John Neumeier (1971). However, after 1966 Ashton’s version dropped from the Danish repertory and was considered lost. Then in 1985 the Danish dancer Peter Schaufuss, the son of Ashton’s first Juliet and Mercutio and the new director of London Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet), drew on members of the original cast to return the ballet to the stage, aided by Ashton himself, who took the opportunity to choreograph and insert a new pas de trois for Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio, as well as clean up several sections and rechoreograph others. It is this version that we can see again at long last.

Peter Schaufuss was almost literally born into the theatre, the son of Frank Schaufuss and Mona Vangsaae, leading dancers with the Royal Danish Ballet. As a child, he joined his parents on stage in children’s roles including the Page Peter in Ashton’s Romeo & Juliet. After his official debut with the company in Don Quixote pas de deux at the age of eighteen, he embarked on an international career as a principal star dancer with the world’s leading companies including London Festival Ballet/English National Ballet, Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Paris Opera, Mariinsky Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet. During that time he danced all the major roles at the world’s most prestigious ballet stages and had choreographers such as George Balanchine, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Roland Petit, and Sir Frederick Ashton creating on him. Peter has been Director of London Festival/English National Ballet (where he founded the English National Ballet School), Berlin Ballet Deutsche Oper, and Royal Danish Ballet.

In 1997 he successfully started his own company, Peter Schaufuss Ballet & School, in Denmark, choreographing 22 full-length Ballets/Dancicals and touring extensively. Peter has produced, directed, and choreographed over a hundred productions worldwide, winning many awards including the Evening Standard and Olivier Award in London, the Berlin and Edinburgh Festival Critics Award. His four-part BBC program “DANCER” seen worldwide was nominated for the Emmy Award in the United States. In 1988 Peter was Knighted in his native Denmark and also later received The Order de La Couronne in Belgian for his services to the arts. This year he has transferred his Peter Schaufuss Ballet to Edinburgh, where he owns two theatres, changing the Company name to Edinburgh Festival Ballet & School. His son Luke and daughter Tara continue the proud family tradition as dancers with The Sarasota Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet.