SF Ballet's Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet has survived theatrical adaptations set in different centuries and cultures, and been used as symphonic inspiration for Berlioz and Tchaikovsky, not to mention cinematic treatments that range from directors Franco Zeffereli to Baz Luhrmann.

My favorite adaptation, however, is the 1936 full-length ballet by Sergei Prokofiev that he wrote after returning to Russia because of a mixture of homesickness and promises from the government of a steady income. This turned out to be a mistake personally and politically in Stalin's Soviet Union, but he composed great music, notably Romeo and Juliet. The musical score is vivid, pictorial, grotesque, romantic, and filled with memorable tunes. (Pictured above in production photos by Lindsay Thomas are Angelo Greco and Jasmine Jamison as the titular young couple.)

As a very young man in the 1970s, I discovered Romeo and Juliet when Michael Smuin was "co-director" of the company, and he choreographed a terrific, lively production that I saw from standing room multiple times because hearing the exciting, theatrical music with a live orchestra and passionate dancers was such a treat.

Helgi Tomasson became the new Artistic Director of the SF Ballet in 1985 and he created a lavish new production in 1994 which was, for the most part, deadly dull. The original play is all about sex and puns about maidenhood and the death of multiple youths, but this version was bloodless.

The Smuin production was sleek, minimalist, and emphasized boys engaging in family gamg war on the streets with swords while taking flying leaps in the air. Tomasson's production features good swordfighting scenes, but his public squares of Verona are a mess. Two "Harlots" are invented for the boys to dance with over and over again, which doesn't make much sense, and poor Romeo is usually impossible to distinguish from his friends or the other "happy villagers."

The most striking music in the ballet is for the Capulet's masked ball, where Romeo and Juliet meet. It sounds like a fascist march mixed with a waltz and it's bizarrely shocking to hear in context. The costumes were gorgeous but were identical in this scene which made the sneaking in of rogue Montagues even more nonsensical than usual.

None of this mattered that much because the music is so stirring and the dancers in the company right now are superb. What was even lovelier, two of the stars of the Smuin production are still performing with the company in "character" roles. Jim Sohm as Friar Laurence in this production was a handsome, sensitive Romeo in Smuin's version. Anita Paciotti (above) is now the Nurse while stealing the show decades ago at every performance when she was Lady Capulet going publicly mad with grief over her nephew Tybalt's dead body. And Prokofiev gave her the percussion and screaming brass music to accompany her over-the-top moment at the end of Act Two.

Tomasson retired last year, although he programmed this year's season, which has been remarkably successful, a mixture of new work and classics with consistently exciting dancing on the part of the company he built. There has already been intimations of more backstage warfare during the transition to the new Artistic Director Tamara Rojo, whose adventurous first season was just announced followed the next day by the resignation of her Executive Director. I wish her the best and hope she will give us a new Romeo and Juliet

There are more performances throughout this weekend, and it's highly reommended. Click here for tickets.