ROMÉO + JULIETTE

Marcos Morau

Live performance

French premiere
Opéra de Lille
1h20

Combine the legendary Shakespearean tale and the iconic Prokofiev score into a powerful cocktail: chug it straight down and … drift into a dream. The nightmare which unfolds here is this new version of Roméo + Juliette.

In conjunction with the Opéra de Lille, Latitudes Contemporaines presents the French premiere of Marcos Morau’s newest masterpiece. In this Roméo + Juliette, the Spanish choreographer takes Shakespeare’s legendary play and sends it into a Surrealist world, punctuated by the powerful, weighty sounds of Prokofiev’s well-known score. The generational conflict between the Montague and Capulet families is transformed into a hypnotic fresco: the dancers from the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen turn into figures from a waking nightmare, caught up in the turmoil of a society in ruins which is facing unending, ever-present violence. Roméo + Juliette deconstructs the playwright’s tragedy, creating a dream-like, fragmented physical language for the performers, their bodies sliding and driving toward what seems to be their inevitable fate. A raw, hallucinatory, intense dance work imbued with elements of fever dreams.

Biography(s)

Spanish choreographer and director Marcos Morau studied photography, choreography and theatre in Barcelona and New York. Since 2004, he has directed La Veronal, which grew into one of Europe’s most prominent dance companies. With La Veronal, he created performances for the Venice Biennale, Festival d’Avignon, Tanz im August in Berlin, SIDance Festival in Seoul and Danse Danse in Montreal, among others. Morau has also collaborated with companies such as Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Since 2023, he has been artist in residence at Staatsballett Berlin. In 2013, Morau received the Premio Nacional de Danza from the Spanish Ministry of Culture.

Credits

Idea and concept : Marcos Morau
Composition : Sergej Prokofjev
Conductor : Gavin Sutherland
Choreography : Marcos Morau in collaboration with the dancers of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen
Assistant choreography : Shay Partush
Rehearsal directors : Ana Maria Lucaciu, Joëlle Auspert, Aaron Shaw
Scenography : Max Glaenzel
Costume design : Silvia Delagneau
Lighting design : Bernat Jansà
Dramaturgy : Roberto Fratini Serafide, Koen Bollen
Dance : Dancers Opera Ballet Vlaanderen
Music Symphonic : Orchestra Opera Ballet Vlaanderen
“ROMEO AND JULIET OP. 64, Ballet, Serge Prokofiev.
Libretto: Sergei Radlov, Adrian Piotrovsky, Leonid Lavrovsky and Serge Prokofiev. Published by: Première Music Group (catalogue Le Chant du Monde).”