City Opera Ballet: Romeo and Juliet
$18-$45
Jon Steinmeier – Romeo and Juliet
City Opera Ballet presents an all new Romeo and Juliet, choreographed by Amber Willett. This production features an original score, commissioned by City Opera Ballet, composed by Jon Steinmeier. Moving, cinematic, and highly percussive, Steinmeier's score links with Willett's emotional and relatable portrayal of Shakespeare's most famous lovers.
This intimate ballet looks beyond the big tragic moments of the well-known story into the characters who lived those moments: the elation of first love, the death of a close relative, filial obligation. Two hearts that couldn't be joined in life are united in a death that is not sweet, but a warning: to seek concord among social/political differences, among family, among those who love but don't fully understand us.
A story of remarkable contrasts — love and hate, youth and age, a funeral on a wedding day — COB's Romeo and Juliet is more than a story of pretty teenage lovers, but also of voyagers across the barriers that separate forbidden loves, creeds, cities, and our own mortalities.
Cast
City Opera Ballet is pleased to welcome David Strong back to his home town of Bellevue as Romeo, Alison Epsom as Juliet, and a host of local talent including Kyle Johnson (Mercutio), Lorraine Constantine (the Nurse), Nathan Cook (Paris), Thomas Phelan (Tybalt), as well as a strong corps of COB natives including Mireÿa Mascarello, Lionel Flynn, Julie Heffner, Tanya Bendis, and few new faces; Victoria Gutierrez, Christopher Engelbrecht, Desiree Valdovinos, Charles Gordon, and Julian Young.
Conducted by Philip Tschopp, City Opera Ballet is accompanied by Orchestra Bellevue, an ensemble of select instrumentalists chosen from the best regional orchestras in the Seattle/Bellevue area.