Why The Royal Ballet love performing Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers encounter passion and tragedy in Kenneth MacMillan’s 20th-century ballet masterpiece, screened live around the world and on BP Big Screens on 11 June 2019. Subscribe to our channel and find encore screenings near you Deborah MacMillan, Matthew Ball, Yasmine Naghdi and Gary Avis discuss their experience of rehearsing and performing in this dramatic and tragic ballet. Kenneth MacMillan’s passionate choreography for Romeo and Juliet shows The Royal Ballet at its dramatic finest. Sergey Prokofiev’s iconic score provides the basis for the ballet’s romantic pas de deux and vibrant crowd scenes, while 16th-century Verona is created by Nicholas Georgiadis’s magnificent designs. 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 minute