Romeo and Juliet - Our House to your House Series

Kenneth MacMillan’s passionate and nuanced choreography for Romeo and Juliet shows The Royal Ballet at its dramatic finest. The dancers playing the star-crossed lovers of the title have a wealth of opportunity for powerful interpretation, not least in the celebrated pas de deux. Around them, the whole Company creates the colour and action of Renaissance Verona, where a busy market bursts into sword fighting and a family feud leads to tragedy for the Montagues and Capulets. Prokofiev’s beautiful score sweeps this dramatic ballet towards its inevitable, emotional end.

In 1965, MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet was given its premiere at Covent Garden by The Royal Ballet and was an immediate success: the first night was met with rapturous applause, which lasted for 40 minutes, and an incredible 43 curtain calls. The title roles were danced by Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, although the ballet had been created on Christopher Gable and Lynn Seymour. It has been performed by The Royal Ballet more than four hundred times since, as well as touring the world, and has become a true classic of the 20th-century ballet repertory.