James Conlon
Wherefore Art Thou Romeo?
Back with the Chicago Symphony, where thou dost belong
By Dennis Polkow
In January 1937 composer Sergei Prokofiev came to Chicago at the invitation of then
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Director Frederick Stock to conduct the CSO in
the American premiere of music from his ballet setting of Shakespeare's Romeo and
Juliet.
Prokofiev was eager to make the trip, as Chicago was a city that he knew well and
loved greatly. This was the composer's fifth visit to the city, which had been the
site of several American premieres of his works throughout the years and, during
most of 1921, his home. That was the year that Prokofiev oversaw the world premieres
of two major works: his Third Piano Concerto—which Prokofiev himself performed downtown
with the CSO—and his opera The Love for Three Oranges for the Chicago Opera
Association, which the composer conducted at the Auditorium Theatre.
On this occasion, however, Prokofiev had another agenda in wanting to come to Chicago
at that particular juncture: his ballet of Romeo and Juliet had yet to
be presented. Prokofiev was determined that his music be heard, despite the delays
in getting it staged back home in Russia.
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Vincenzo Bellini
Other Romeos and Juliets
By John Schauer
The subject of Ravinia's One Score, One Chicago program this year is Prokofiev's
ballet Romeo and Juliet. If there were a ratings system for great love
affairs in history, chances are the highest rank would be given to those two. Our
culture is rife with references to those two "star-cross'd lovers," and even the
least well-read individual who has no idea who King Lear is or thinks that Hamlet
is an omelet made with ham, will recognize the title of what is arguably Shakespeare's
best-known play.
Actually, their love inspired more than Shakespeare, and their tale of woe was told
several times before the Bard set pen to parchment sometime between 1591 and 1596.
There were previous English sources from 1562 (Arthur Brooke's The Tragicall Historye
of Romeus and Juliet) and 1567 (William Painter's Rhomeo and Julietta),
both of them based on a 1559 French version by Pierre Boaisteau. Boaisteau drew
upon Matteo Bandello's 1554 Romeo e Giulietta, which in turn was inspired
by Luigi da Porto's Giulietta e Romeo (ca. 1530), the first version to
set the story in Verona and to give the protagonists the names by which they have
become immortal.
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Cukor's Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet at the Movies
By John Schauer
Shakespeare's actual play has been filmed numerous times, but the three most notable
film adaptations have been George Cukor's 1936 version for MGM, Franco Zefirelli's
1968 production and Baz Luhrman's 1996 take on the story.
MGM undertook its pioneering version as one of the "prestige" pictures the studio
(the biggest in Hollywood) could afford to make—unlike today's filmmakers, for whom
each project can spell blockbuster success or financial disaster. Irving Thalberg,
the wunderkind who actually ran the artistic side of the studio that most people
perceived as being under the dictatorship of Louis B. Mayer, was the uncredited
producer (he routinely refused to list his name in his films' credits, saying, "Credit
you give yourself is not worth having"). In the title roles he cast his wife, Norma
Shearer, and British actor Leslie Howard (best known today as Ashley in Gone with
the Wind), both major stars at the time.
The project was a labor of love for producer Thalberg; Nicholas Schenck, the head
of MGM's parent company, dismissed it as "a silly idea," but Thalberg
went all out, commissioning a thousand individually created Renaissance costumes,
building sets on an unprecedented scale and hiring dance legend Agnes de Mille as
choreographer and Shakespearean authority William Strunk Jr. of Cornell University
as a literary consultant.
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Related Events
The Ravinia Festival presents a lecture on Sergei Prokofiev’s masterwork, Romeo
and Juliet. Ravinia Associate Director of Communications John Schauer will
place the work within the historical contexts of ballet, tonality and Prokofiev’s
career.
Chicago Public Library
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Harold Washington Library Center
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
Pianist Mary Rose Norell will perform selections from the piano
reduction of the work as arranged by the composer.
Highland Park Public Library
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Auditorium - Meeting Room