Russian National Ballet to Perform Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET and CHOPINIANA in Detroit, 3/23

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Detroit Music Hall hosts The Russian National Ballet Theatre, Saturday, March 23rd at 8 pm as they stage the rarely performed, original Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky version of the William Shakespearetragedy, Romeo And Juliet and Chopiniana by Frederic Chopin.

The Russian National Ballet Theatre company brings this rarely seen original - as opposed to the later and more often performed Sergei Prokofiev version to Detroit Music Hall's main stage. The Tchiakovsky version was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and restaged by The Russian National Ballet's Elena Radchenko.

This is the full length, final version composed by Tchaikovsky in 1880. The Tchaikovsky version is rarely performed which makes this a not-to-miss ballet for anyone interested in ballet history.

In the great tradition of Russian ballet, this accomplished company performs two of the most romantic classical ballets. With music by Chopin and choreography by Mikhail Fokine, Chopiniana, or Les Sylphides as it is often known, has been described as a "romantic reverie." Romeo and Juliet will also be performed to Tchaikovsky's opulent score, elevates Shakespeare's heartbreaking tale of young star-crossed lovers.

The Russian National Ballet Theatre was founded in Moscow during the transitional period of Perestroika in the late 1980s, when many of the great dancers and choreographers of the Soviet Union's ballet institutions were exercising their new-found creative freedom by starting new, vibrant companies dedicated not only to the timeless tradition of classical Russian Ballet but to invigorate this tradition as the Russians began to accept new developments in the dance from around the world.

The company, then titled the Soviet National Ballet, was founded by and incorporated graduates from the great Russian choreographic schools of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Perm. The principal dancers of the company came from the upper ranks of the great ballet companies and academies of Russia, and the companies of Riga, Kiev and even Warsaw. Today, the Russian National Ballet Theatre is its own institution, with over 50 dancers of singular instruction and vast experience, many of whom have been with the company since its inception.

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