Lincoln Center at Home Presents San Francisco Ballet: ROMEO AND JULIET

Lincoln Center at Home (#LincolnCenterAtHome) presents San Francisco Ballet: Romeo and Juliet on May 11, 2020. As a part of this new initiative, viewers can watch archival Lincoln Center performances, available for free and on demand at LincolnCenter.org and on Lincoln Center's Facebook Page.

Monday, May 11, 2020 at 5:30pm EST

San Francisco Ballet: Romeo and Juliet

(2015 Live From Lincoln Center broadcast)

With its passionate choreography, spine-tingling swordsmanship, and celebrated score by Sergei Prokofiev, this colorful and emotional retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet has packed houses around the world. Helgi Tomasson's bravura interpretation of the Bard's greatest tragedy "lifts Shakespeare's complex and familiar language off the gilded pages and translates it into lucid classical choreography that is visceral, fresh, and ultimately sublime." (The Huffington Post)

with Maria Kochetkova and Davit Karapetyan in the title roles

WATCH HERE.

Lincoln Center at Home (#LincolnCenterAtHome is dedicated to maintaining connections to the arts during the COVID-19 pandemic. A free, one-stop portal to all digital offerings from across the iconic campus, offerings also include Lincoln Center Pop-Up Classroom, and #ConcertsForKids, as well an array of archival and livestream performances available for free and on demand at LincolnCenter.org and on Lincoln Center's Facebook Page. Visit LincolnCenter.org to watch and view a weekly schedule.

Friday, May 8, 2020 at 5:30pm EST

As part of their new initiative, SF Ballet @ Home, San Francisco Ballet will stream their full-length production of Romeo and Juliet as recorded on May 8, 2015 in the War Memorial Opera House with Mathilde Froustey and Carlo Di Lanno in the title roles.

WATCH HERE.

SF Ballet @ Home invites the public to stay connected to SF Ballet while sheltering in place. Every Friday, SF Ballet streams a complete ballet from the archives on Facebook, IGTV, YouTube, and the SF Ballet website, calling on regional, national, and international audiences to relish the joy of dance from the comfort of their homes-all free of charge. New, live commentary by SF Ballet dancers and artistic staff accompanies each stream, offering a behind-the-scenes look into the roles of the Company's artists. Each stream is made available for one week. With this timeline, SF Ballet hopes to inspire in-the-moment discussions about the role dance plays in this time of worldwide discovery, digital innovation, and artistic creation.

Helgi Tomasson's Romeo & Juliet premiered during SF Ballet's 1994 Repertory Season. Set to Sergei Prokofiev's score, the full-length production features lighting design by Thomas R. Skelton and "opulent" (LA Times) Italian Renaissance designs by Jens-Jacob Worssae, marking Worssae's final collaboration with Tomasson before he passed away shortly after the ballet's premiere. "I think it was the most beautiful work he'd ever done, and yet he did not see it," Tomasson said about the ballet's designs. "That's [one] reason why this production is very, very special to me."

Shakespeare's story of ill-fated lovers is illuminated through Tomasson's classical choreography, which is sharp and spirited in times of triumph, solemn and lyrical in times of loss, and sensual in moments of romantic passion. Included in Romeo & Juliet is the choreographed sword-fighting scenes, which Martino (Marty) Pistone choreographed in tandem with Tomasson. Actor, teacher, and movie stunt man Pistone expressed the desire to create "a dichotomy," where Tomasson's "classical ballet matched up with stage combat, semi-realism...when the fights break out, it's a whole different movement which accentuates the illusion of violence that you see between these two families." True to the era, characters fight with rapiers, daggers, bucklers, and capes in tightly choreographed scenes requiring hours of rehearsal.

Romeo & Juliet inaugurated Lincoln Center at the Movies: Great American Dance in 2015, when it was shown at cinemas nationwide. The ballet has performed at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Bolshoi Theatre (balcony pas de deux), and Segerstrom Center for the Arts. SF Ballet most recently performed Tomasson's Romeo & Juliet on tour at The Royal Danish Opera House in Copenhagen, Denmark, October 30-November 2, 2019.

For digital offerings from Lincoln Center's resident organizations, please visit LincolnCenter.org or individual websites.

Photo Credit: Erik Tomasson