From May 6-26, 2021, audience around the world will have the opportunity to see an archival performance of San Francisco Ballet dance Helgi Tomasson’s Romeo & Juliet.
For Program 06 of the 2021 Digital Season, the company has opened the vaults for ballet fans to watch Maria Kochetkova and Davit Karapetyan in the title roles.
Also featured in this performance that was originally captured at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House for a Lincoln Center at the Movies: Great American Dance production in 2015 are:
- Mercutio: Pascal Molat
- Benvolio: Joseph Walsh
- Tybalt: Luke Ingham
- Lord Capulet: Ricardo Bustamante
- Lady Capulet: Sofiane Sylve
- Nurse: Anita Paciotti
- Paris: Myles Thatcher
- Rosaline: WanTing Zhao
- Lord Montague: Rubén Martín Cintas
- Lady Montague: Lacey Escabar
- Friar Lawrence: Jim Sohm
- Prince of Verona: Martino Pistone
The last time San Francisco Ballet performed Romeo & Juliet was on their final tour before the pandemic in the fall of 2019 at The Royal Danish Opera House in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Helgi Tomasson's Romeo & Juliet
Tomasson’s Romeo & Juliet premiered during SF Ballet’s 1994 Repertory Season and is set to Sergei Prokofiev’s score, performed in the May 6–26 stream by the SF Ballet Orchestra under the direction of Music Director Martin West.
Romeo & Juliet includes lighting design by Thomas R. Skelton and “opulent” (Los Angeles Times) Italian Renaissance designs by Jens-Jacob Worsaae, marking Worsaae’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.”
Martino Pistone choreographed the production’s sword-fighting scenes in tandem with Tomasson. Actor, teacher, and movie stunt man Pistone, who also performs as Prince of Verona in the stream, expressed the desire to create “a dichotomy,” where Tomasson’s “classical ballet matched up with stage combat [and] 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.
Featured Photo of Maria Kochetkova in Helgi Tomasson’s Romeo & Juliet © Erik Tomasson
