Though it contains some of the most romantic ballet music ever composed, getting Sergey Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet to the stage was no fairy tale.
The first production by the Bolshoi Theatre was cancelled, possibly because of controversy around Dmitri Shostakovich’s ballet The Limpid Stream, which was also on the Bolshoi Theatre’s bill in 1936. Other theories include that the ballet was undanceable, or that Prokofiev’s decision to give Shakespeare’s tragedy a happy ending provoked outrage. The ballet was eventually performed with Shakespeare’s original ending at the Brno State Theatre in Czechoslovakia 1938, though it still has the tone of a ballet composed for Soviet theatres.
Prokofiev’s Romeo trips along like a fully-grown Peter from the symphonic fairy tale Peter and the Wolf. This is a far cry from Romeo the archetype of teen angst.
When Prokofiev composed Romeo and Juliet in 1935, the Soviet Union was reeling from famine and Joseph Stalin’s regime was taking increasingly punitive measures against dissenters. A state-sanctioned artistic style known as Socialist Realism required art to be lifelike, representational, and uplifting. Heroes were supposed to depict the selfless “New Soviet Man,” and the New Soviet Man didn’t mope among the sycamores at dawn; he was already ploughing the field with his comrades.
While Romeo only gets one theme, Juliet gets three. This makes her a multi-faceted character, but one could wish for a more nuanced set of character traits. ”The Young Juliet” starts with light, running lines suggesting innocence and youth. A slower theme suggests tenderness and warmth (0:36). The final theme is a high melody foreshadowing her grief at the end of the play (1:10).
Prokofiev’s “Dance of the Knights” accompanies the knights of the noble families dancing at the Capulet’s ball. Never again would music achieve such sinister awe, except perhaps for John Williams’s “Imperial March” from Star Wars.
Why do these pieces sound similar? Anyone familiar with the “March” will expect Darth Vader to stride in when the trombones enter in the “Dance” (0:38). But your Jedi sense might also pick up the high violins (0:13). They play a descending chromatic line (adjacent black and white keys on the piano), as do the brass in the “March” (0:18).
The similarity was not lost on the brass section of this orchestra:
Why did Prokofiev make the knights sound so evil that they appear, to our ears, like Darth Vader? Through the lens of Socialist Realism, the knights represent the old nobility of the Russian Empire against which young, progressive Stalin-Romeo rebels. Like Williams in the “space opera” Star Wars, Prokofiev chose the most evil-sounding musical techniques to represent the reactionary Empire.
The fast, changing rhythms of Mercutio’s music represents his playful, “mercurial” nature. The sheer joy of his theme makes his (spoiler alert) death at the hands of Tybalt especially tragic.
In “Death of Mercutio” the dancing strings from Mercutio’s theme become a fluttering heartbeat that gradually slows to a stop (3:07). Even in the throes of death you can hear Mercutio joking around.
Prokofiev extends the famous balcony scene into three dances: “The Balcony Scene,” “Romeo’s Variation,” and the “Love Dance.” These dances are based on Romeo’s theme, which is gradually transformed to represent his development as a character. As Karen Bennett explains, at the beginning of the balcony scene Juliet hears Romeo’s theme played on the organ, possibly symbolising Juliet’s thoughts of marriage (0:42).
You can really hear Romeo’s puppy-dog writhing beneath the balcony in “Romeo’s Variation” (3:34). Bennett suggests the music sounds awkward because Romeo’s theme has been transformed by Romeo’s experience at the ball. The courtly graces of his rival Paris sit awkwardly on him.
Finally, Romeo’s theme blooms into a complete and graceful melody as the lovers do what lovers do best (5:05).
Depicting Juliet grieving in her room after refusing to marry Paris, “Juliet Alone” contains some of the most tensely atmospheric music in the ballet. Tick-tocking woodwind underpin melancholy fragments of different themes, as though turned around in Juliet’s mind. Now this is a portrait of teenage angst.
Prokofiev was heavily criticised for changing Shakespeare’s story and later insisted he had only done so because “the dead cannot dance lying down.” When the version known to audiences today was finally performed, Shakespeare’s original tragic ending was reinstated. Juliet’s death is accompanied by an outpouring of Juliet’s third, mournful theme (7:26).
As well as containing a stream of sumptuous and memorable melodies, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet raises a range of fascinating issues around the intersection of politics and music. Would have Prokofiev written such memorable melodies without the constraints of Socialist Realism? Was there a hierarchy of aesthetic priorities wherein fidelity to Shakespeare’s text was more important to Soviet critics than forced Socialist-Realist cheerfulness? How do we hear the character of Juliet today, whose music is at once multifaceted and stereotyped, sidelined by Romeo's bombastic theme yet central to the whole ballet?
ABC Classic FM will broadcast the Cleveland Orchestra's performance of Romeo and Juliet conducted by Lorin Maazel (DG, 1998) at 8pm on Tuesday 15 May. Listen live or on-demand.