Russian National Ballet: Romeo & Juliet

The Russian National Ballet Theatre was founded in Moscow during the transitional period of perestroika in the late 1980s. It is helmed by former Bolshoi dancer Elena Radchecko, who is committed to the preservation and standards of the great Russian ballet companies of the past.

THIS IS A DOUBLE BILL:
Chopiniana (music by Frederic Chopin) is a ballet from the romantic period (late 19th c.) and is also known as Les Sylphides. It’s plotless, with a poet figure (a man) who dances with sylphs in a moonlight-type setting. The music is almost hypnotic in its melodies. It’s one of the ballet world’s “white ballets”, in which the women wear all white costumes with few adornments.

Romeo & Juliet is a ballet most often performed with a well-known score by Prokofiev, so to see the original Tchaikovsky version is unusual. This is a somewhat abbreviated version – else we’d all be here until midnight! It is this company’s mission to show work that represents the Russian heritage, and as the Prokofiev dates only to 1935, they are reaching further back.