Family ties and modern twist help make Festival ballet special

May 3 2011 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

DANCE of a quality to match the other events on the Perth Festival programme has been an absentee in recent years. Happily that gap is poised to be filled on May 19 when the Peter Schaufuss Ballet perform the world’s most favourite love story Romeo and Juliet at Perth Concert Hall.

Originally created by Sir Frederick Ashton in 1955, this captivating production has been brought into the 21st century and given a fresh dimension by the Olivier Award winning choreographer and director Peter Schaufuss.

Ashton’s Romeo and Juliet has graced the most important stages in the world including The New York Metropolitan Opera House in New York and London Coliseum, and it was nominated for an Olivier Award.

It is a unique production in many ways, not least for the way Ashton fused Shakespeare, Prokofiev’s music and the play’s characters into a ballet which reveals an intimacy between the performers and the audience.

For this newly-created version of one of the world’s greatest titles by one of the world’s greatest choreographers, the costumes are the original designs by Peter Rice, with new sets and state-of-the-art lighting designed by young Italian artist Luciano Melini.

Sir Frederick Ashton was the great artist and choreographer who co-founded Britain’s Royal Ballet. He first staged Romeo and Juliet for The Royal Danish Ballet in 1955, in which his original Juliet was the mother of Peter Schaufuss.

On his death in 1988 Ashton bequeathed the work to Peter Schaufuss, the Danish dance legend whose virtuoso gifts and magnetic stage presence turned him into a global ballet superstar. Today Schaufuss is revolutionising his chosen art form, presenting to the world the magic of classical ballet with a modern twist.

“I knew Sir Fred very well,” recalls Schaufuss. “He was, above all, a man of the moment and though I am ever mindful of my great responsibilities as appointed guardian of his masterpiece, Sir Fred would be deeply intrigued by a flash of 21st century attitude on a work created 55 years ago.”

Romeo and Juliet features Peter Schaufuss Ballet principle dancers Megumi Oki and Stefan Wise, who have also starred in West End productions such as Satisfaction, Divas and Marilyn, in the title roles.

Schaufuss established the Peter Schaufuss Ballet in 1997, drawing upon his distinguished dancing career. In 1988 he was knighted in Denmark, and in 1995 was made an Officer of the Belgian Order of La Couronne. Before establishing his own company, he was Director of the London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet) where he founded the English National Ballet School, Berlin Ballet at Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Royal Ballet in Copenhagen.