'Romeo and Juliet'

In Music lessons during the first part of Hilary, Year 6 undertook a score-based analysis of compositional techniques in Igor Stravinsky’s famous ballet, The Firebird (Жар-птица).
Continuing this theme of twentieth-century Russian ballet, on Friday 11 February, Mr Neal, Mrs Neal, and Miss Rose took Year 6 to the New Theatre, Oxford, to see Romeo and Juliet (Ромео и Джульетта) by the great Russian composer Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev(1891-1953). The ballet was performed by the amazingly talented and athletic dancers of the Russian State Ballet of Siberia, an internationally renowned company. Prokofiev’sscore is based on Adrian Piotrovsky’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play, and was first composed in 1935 (just twenty-five years after Stravinsky composed The Firebird). The ballet is scored for a vast orchestra which includes (in addition to the usual string, wind, and brass instruments) a celesta, a contrabassoon, a bass clarinet, a tenor saxophone, two harps, two mandolins, an organ, and eleven different percussion instruments! The whole production was incredible. We were spellbound by the dancers’ incredible skills; we had a really fun and wonderful time!