Sergey PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet Complete ballet Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop CD 1 75:03 CD 2 69:11 Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953) Romeo and Juliet Act I Act II (contd.) It is a measure of the achievement of Prokofiev’s most ballet’). Rejecting the supposedly empty-headed 1 Introduction 2:39 1 Romeo at Friar Laurence’s 2:50 well-loved stage work that today we take for granted the confections of Marius Petipa (legendary choreographer of 2 Romeo 1:35 2 Juliet at Friar Laurence’s 3:16 concept of a narrative full-length ballet, in which every Tchaikovsky’s ballets), Radlov and his choreographers dance and action advances its story. Indeed, we are now aimed to create ballets with realistic narratives and of 3 The Street Wakens 1:33 3 Public Merrymaking 3:23 so familiar with this masterpiece that it is easy to overlook psychological depth, meanwhile teaching dancers how to 4 4 Morning Dance 2:12 Further Public Festivities 2:32 how audacious was the concept of translating so verbal a convey the thoughts and motivations of the characters 5 The Quarrel 1:43 5 Meeting of Tybalt and Mercutio 1:56 drama as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into a full- they portrayed. As artistic director of the Leningrad State 6 The Fight 3:43 6 The Duel 1:27 length ballet. Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (formerly the 7 The Duke’s Command 1:21 7 Death of Mercutio 2:31 We largely owe its existence to Sergey Radlov, a Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, but now widely known by the 8 Interlude 1:54 8 Romero Decides to Avenge Mercutio 2:07 disciple of the revolutionary theatre director Vsevolod abbreviation Akopera), Radlov directed two early 9 At the Capulets’ 9 Finale 2:07 Meyerhold. Radlov was a well-respected stage director in drambalets with music composed by a long-standing (Preparations for the Ball) 2:24 his own right, particularly renowned in the early 1930s for colleague of Prokofiev’s, Boris Asafiev: The Flames of 0 The Young Juliet 3:18 Act III staging Shakespeare’s plays. A friend of Prokofiev from Paris (1932), for which Prokofiev, then living in Paris, had before the Revolution, he was aware of the composer’s researched old French tunes; and the Pushkin-based The ! Arrival of the Guests: Minuet 4:01 ballets written in Paris for Diaghilev’s company, including Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1934). For the latter, the @ 0 Masks 2:53 Introduction 1:15 The Prodigal Son. Composed in 1929, that ballet had not choreographer Rostislav Zakharov, a former student of # Dance of the Knights ! Romeo and Juliet (Juliet’s Bedroom) 1:26 only unveiled Prokofiev’s newly forged lyrical style, which Radlov’s, had insisted that his dancers should learn (Montagues and Capulets) 5:32 @ Romeo Bids Juliet Farewell 5:12 the composer himself called a ‘new simplicity’, but had Stanislavsky’s method as well as study Pushkin’s original $ Juliet’s Variation 2:47 # Nurse 1:54 simultaneously revealed a hitherto unsuspected depth of poem. Preparing the ballet’s lead female role, Maria, % Mercutio 2:18 $ Juliet Refuses to Marry Paris 2:34 emotion in his music. proved a profoundly formative experience for Galina ^ Madrigal 3:21 % Juliet Alone 1:40 Perhaps more important was Prokofiev’s experience Ulanova, the ballerina who later created the role of Juliet: & Tybalt Recognizes Romeo 1:59 ^ Interlude 1:25 as an opera composer. Radlov was especially familiar with ‘I can say without exaggeration that after The Fountain of * Gavotte: Departure of the Guests 3:28 & At Friar Laurence’s Cell 4:48 this side of Prokofiev’s creativity, having directed a highly Bakhchisarai I had to revise all my former roles. And successful production of The Love for Three Oranges (in having enacted, after Maria, the role of Juliet in ( Balcony Scene 3:19 * Interlude 1:41 1926, then revived in 1927), and subsequently attempted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, I stopped dancing ) ( Romeo’s Variation 1:24 Juliet’s Room 2:57 with Meyerhold (though the project ultimately ran aground) altogether in such conventional ballets as Raymonda and ¡ Love Dance 5:48 ) Juliet Alone 4:49 to stage Prokofiev’s ‘realist’ opera The Gambler – a work The Sleeping Beauty.’ ¡ Aubade (Morning Serenade) 2:38 Meyerhold had predicted would ‘overturn the entire art of It seems it was the writer Adrian Piotrovsky, recruited Act II ™ Dance of the Girls with Lilies 2:14 opera’. Prokofiev had not only demonstrated in his operas by Radlov to help create the ballet’s scenario, who first £ At Juliet’s Bedside 2:00 an ability to delineate character, but also – most notably in suggested Romeo and Juliet to Prokofiev as a possible ™ Folk Dance 3:42 The Fiery Angel – had made sophisticated use of subject, alongside two other classic love stories – £ Romeo and Mercutio 2:17 Act IV symphonic development to transform themes associated Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande and the medieval tale of ¢ Dance of the Five Couples 3:56 with specific individuals, reflecting their psychological or Tristan and Isolde. Prokofiev jumped at Romeo and Juliet emotional development as the drama unfolded. Such (though, perhaps recalling Piotrovsky’s other suggestions, ∞ Dance with Mandolins 2:02 ¢ Juliet’s Funeral 6:00 qualities gave Radlov faith that Prokofiev was a composer his ballet score alludes to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde § ∞ Nurse 2:11 Juliet’s Death 4:09 capable of achieving the psychological ‘truth’ he needed for during the Balcony Scene – see synopsis below). ¶ The Nurse and Romeo 0:56 a new kind of narrative ballet. Radlov, Piotrovsky and Prokofiev drafted the ballet’s In the early 1930s Radlov had played a formative role scenario in the course of 1934. In the meantime, however, in establishing the new genre of Drambalet (‘dramatic Radlov resigned from his post at Akopera, complaining of the theatre’s ‘atmosphere of overt and shameless get some of the music performed, Prokofiev compiled two sonata’s scherzo while entirely refashioning the music to reveal strings playing a soft, exquisite discord). Then persecution that has been created for me’. By the following orchestral suites of Romeo and Juliet in 1936. The ballet fit Lavrovsky’s choreography. follows 8 a pompous procession of the Prince’s retinue. year he was encouraging Prokofiev to respond to eventually received its first staging, in truncated form Other additions made at Lavrovsky’s insistence This leads straight to – overtures from Moscow: the Bolshoi Theatre’s new though including a newly composed tragic ending, in Brno, included Juliet’s Variation in the Masquerade Scene $; a director, Vladimir Mutnykh, was keen to replace that Czechoslovakia, on 30 December 1938. further variation for Romeo mid-way through the Balcony Scene 2: At the Capulets’ venue’s mostly 19th-century repertoire with new Soviet Even while orchestrating Romeo and Juliet, a Scene (( – compare this with the penultimate number in works. With the understanding that Radlov and Piotrovsky process he started immediately after completing the Suite No. 1); and the Dance with Mandolins ∞. Elsewhere (9 – Preparations for the Ball) The original scenario simply would remain in the project, Prokofiev secured a contract original piano score, Prokofiev evidently decided to drop cuts were made, such as 25 bars from £ Romeo and named this dance Servants: Prokofiev possibly intended for the ballet’s production at the Bolshoi during the 1935– the controversial ‘happy ending’: the last eight bars of No. Mercutio. Prokofiev protested most of these changes, yet this for Romeo and Benvolio’s encounter with the simple 36 season. After fine-tuning the scenario with Zakharov 51 in the piano score are crossed out, and he wrote on the end result follows the original play with remarkable servant – as per Shakespeare – from whose written (soon to become the Bolshoi ballet’s new artistic director), that page: ‘from here go to the new No. 52, the death of fidelity, allowing for some notable changes of detail or in the message they learn of the masquerade to be held at the Prokofiev spent the summer of 1935 composing Romeo Juliet’. Quite when he composed the ‘new’ ending is not sequence of scenes necessitated by the translation from Capulets’. (0 – The Young Juliet) Young and excitable at and Juliet in Polenovo, a rural ‘rest home’ reserved for clear, but significantly neither of the two suites by which spoken play to the non-verbal medium of ballet. Some of first, the 13-year-old heroine soon shows signs of budding Bolshoi artists overlooking the Oka River some 135 he hoped to promote his ballet after the thwarted Moscow these changes are noted in the following synopsis of the emotional maturity (a calmer instrumental interlude kilometres south of Moscow. In a remarkable burst of premiere includes any of the music from the original ballet, together with some observations about the music. initiated by flute). (! – Arrival of the Guests: Minuet) A creativity, he completed the entire piano score by 8 ‘happy ending’. Nor did Prokofiev prepare any of the grandiose dance for full orchestra and corps de ballet; an September. The following month, he auditioned the work pages of the ‘happy ending’ for his assistant, Pavel Synopsis interlude with suave-sounding cornet represents Lord to the Bolshoi committee. Yet even before a second Lamm, to write out their orchestration. In any event, Capulet himself. (@ – Masks) Romeo and his friends arrive rendition of the piano score in front of an audience of Prokofiev had clearly composed the tragic ending, in line CD 1 in disguise to gatecrash the ball. We hear Romeo’s wistful critics and musicians, held in January at the editorial office with Shakespeare, in time for the 1938 Brno staging, well ‘Rosaline’ theme for the last time.