Romeo and Juliet

Prokofiev composed Romeo and Juliet in 1935 for the Bolshoi, on a scenario that originally ended happily, since the dead, as he put it, cannot dance. The theatre rejected the score as undanceable, the ending was restored to Shakespeare's, and the ballet was first staged not in Moscow but in Brno, on 30 December 1938, in a version the composer had no hand in. The Kirov gave the Soviet premiere in 1940 with Galina Ulanova as Juliet, after the dancers had argued with Prokofiev over the rhythms of nearly every scene.