91Èȱ¬

Shakespeare’s tragic romance Romeo and Juliet remains one of his most popular and most adapted works across many different art forms, from television and film to music and dance.

Watch and discover how three key scenes from the play (the fight between Romeo and Tybalt, the balcony scene and the death scene) have been interpreted in four varied versions of the play.

These are:

• The 91Èȱ¬'s 1978 television production
• The 2002 filmed version of Gounod's opera Romeo et Juliette starring Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu
• The 2009 Royal Ballet production with Kenneth Macmillan's choreography and Prokofiev's music starring Carlos Acosta and Tamara Rojo
• The 2016 Pop Up Opera production of Bellini's opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi (filmed in the vaults beneath London's Waterloo station)

Shakespeare probably wrote his great story of tragic love around 1595-6, and it was first published in 1597, where its title page described it as “an excellent conceited tragedie… often (with great applause) plaid publiquely”. At about the same time the playwright also wrote , which features in comic form the story of another pair of ill-fated lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe; its origins date back to classical times, it being one of the tales in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Shakespeare would perhaps have read this in Latin at school, as well as in an English translation by Arthur Golding published in 1567. This plus Chaucer’s 1385 poem Troilus and Criseyde appear to be very likely early sources for Shakespeare.

There were however more recent versions of the story in French and Italian literature, including by Luigi da Porta in the 1530s and Matteo Bandello in the 1550s, before Arthur Brookes published The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet in 1562. This was a translation of a French version of the story written by Boaistuau in 1559.

While Brookes’ poem became very popular with Elizabethan readers and was the immediate source for Shakespeare, the playwright made a number of changes to the story, and it was his poignant tragedy of the ‘star-cross’d lovers’ which overshadowed all previous versions and has become the most famous love story of all time.

Juliet, a member of the Capulet family, meets Romeo of the Montague family - which has an ongoing feud with the Capulets - at a masked ball held by Juliet’s family. Although Juliet is due to marry Paris, she falls instantly in love with Romeo, and he with her. Later, in the famous ‘balcony scene’, they exchange vows of love, well knowing that their families would be extremely hostile to their union.

The play is delivered faithfully to the screen in the 91Èȱ¬ Shakespeare television series, where the director’s vision was clearly to bring out the text itself rather than impose a distinct interpretation upon it, as you can see from this clip of the balcony scene.

The lovers marry in secret, but shortly afterwards Mercutio (a close friend of Romeo) and Tybalt (Juliet’s cousin) have an altercation which results in a fight during which Tybalt kills Mercutio. Romeo then challenges Tybalt, and kills him. In the 91Èȱ¬ version, the unfortunate Tybalt is played by the young Alan Rickman, and Romeo and Tybalt exude an impetuous energy appropriate to the youth of Shakespeare’s characters.

Meanwhile Juliet’s father decides Paris can now marry Juliet, not knowing that she has already wed Romeo. To frustrate this Friar Laurence, who has helped the lovers and married them, gives Juliet a potion that mimics the effect of death, with the intention that she could appear dead and later elope with Romeo. A message is sent to Romeo telling him of the plan, but tragically it never gets to him.

Juliet drinks the potion and appears to die. She is taken to the family crypt, where Paris mourns her. But Romeo hears that she has died and deciding to die alongside her he obtains poison. He then goes to the crypt, where he encounters Paris. They fight, and Romeo kills Paris. Romeo takes the poison – but then Juliet wakes up as Romeo dies. In despair she kills herself with Romeo’s dagger.

The tragedy of love and death are given full rein in the 91Èȱ¬ Shakespeare version.

The Romeo and Juliet story was very popular in Italy, and there were libretti based on the story by Luzzi (1785), Foppa (1796), and Buonaiuti (1810). Luigi Scevola wrote the play Giuletta e Romeo in 1818, on which Felice Romani based the libretto that Vincenzo Bellini was to use for his 1830 ‘tragedia lyrica’ entitled I Capuleti e I Montecchi.

This opera was performed in Venice and promptly made the composer’s reputation. In fact however its plot is based more on the 1550s Bandello source that Shakespeare used than on Shakespeare directly. There are some plot differences, but the main thrust of the story is the same.

The balcony scene involves not just declarations of love but Romeo failing to persuade Juliet to elope at once. Other plot variations are more significant: Tebaldo (Tybalt) survives for instance, his fight with Romeo halted by the sound of a funeral dirge for Juliet. Romeo begins the scene not grieving for Mercutio but drunk and despairing.

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The story takes its tragic course, with Juliet taking a potion that mimics death, Romeo not getting the message that Juliet was doing this in order to be with him, and Romeo coming to the crypt, seeing Juliet apparently dead and fatally poisoning himself. Juliet however does not then die – the opera ends with her slumped in despair over the body of her poisoned lover. In the Pop Up Opera scene this is especially moving as the naturalistic acting abilities of the protagonists combine with strong singing and a poignant score to create a powerful climax.

The first major French musical interpretation of Shakespeare’s play was inspired by a production by Garrick in London in 1827. The French composer Hector Berlioz saw it and fell instantly in love with the actress playing Juliet, Harriet Smithson. They married in 1833, and in 1839 Berlioz completed his operatic symphony Romeo at Juliette. It is mostly orchestral until the finale, when the vocal parts come out in force. Hector and Harriet’s own lives did not continue as star-crossed lovers: while neither died as a result of their love, the marriage didn’t last either thanks to Berlioz having an affair.

More familiar to modern audiences than the Berlioz piece is the opera Romeo et Juliette by another Frenchman, Charles Gounod. Its librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré modelled the story directly on Shakespeare’s play, and though Gounod reportedly had trouble with the final act, in the end composing it twice, it was an immediate success on its premiere in 1867 in Paris, and has since entered the canon.

Real-life husband and wife Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu performed Gounod's Romeo et Juliette memorably on film in 2003.

While Alagna and Gheorghiu’s genuine love shines through in the balcony scene, other qualities were required elsewhere.

Early in the filming Roberto Alagna badly twisted his ankle, and as even walking was painful and difficult it was thought necessary to use a stunt double in the energetic fight scene with Tybalt. When the scene came to be shot however the tenor determined to perform the scene himself, and somehow managed to run, fight and escape despite the pain and damage to his joint. Heroic acting, indeed.

The influence of the Romeo and Juliet story was not restricted to Western Europe. In Russia Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote an orchestral work based on Shakespeare’s play, which he styled a Fantasy Overture. Sergei Prokofiev composed the ballet Romeo and Juliet in 1935. It was written to a synopsis by Adrian Pyotrovsky and Sergei Radlov based on Shakespeare’s play.

The 2007 Royal Ballet version with choreography by Kenneth Macmillan featuring Carlos Acosta and Tamara Rojo was widely acclaimed, not just for the music and choreography but for the chemistry between the two lovers, the elegance of Acosta’s Romeo combined with the girlish desire of Rojo’s Juliet, particularly in the balcony scene described by one reviewer as resonating “with such intensity that you sense the whole of the ensuing tragedy hovering over their heads”.