RSNO explore lovers

IN Stalin’s Russia, tragedy was banned.

So how could a composer set Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to music? Sergei Prokofiev did just that.

Tomorrow, at the Usher Hall, the latest of the RSNO’s Naked Classic series, presented in association with the Evening News, finds Paul Rissmann using a mixture of projections, lighting, on stage demonstrations and interviews to reveal the stories behind this masterpiece.

One of the most passionate of all ballet scores, the RSNO, under the baton of new principal guest conductor Thomas Søndergård (pictured) will then perform the piece, which today has become widely known as the theme tune of The Apprentice.

Commissioned by the Kirov Ballet, Prokofiev competed the work in September 1935, but the original submission was branded ‘undanceable.’

After a significant revision the Kirov Ballet presented the work in Leningrad in 1940. It has since become one of the most famous and best loved balled scores of all time.

Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet, Usher Hall, Lothian Road, tomorrow, 7.30pm, £10, 0131-228 1155