Sergei Polunin’s twice-postponed London debut as Romeo in a new rendition of Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Albert Hall has been scheduled for this winter.
The performance will be held at the historic London venue on 1 December 2021. It was originally scheduled for 14 April last year but had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then rescheduled for 6 May 2021, but has been rescheduled again due to current restrictions.
This will be Sergei Polunin’s London debut, having previously danced with the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre in roles such as Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake and Frantz in Coppélia.
Romanian ballerina Alina Cojocaru is set to perform alongside Polunin as Juliet. She was previously Principal of The Royal Ballet from April 2001 to June 2013, and won an award for Outstanding Female Classical Performance at the Critics’ Dance Awards in 2018 and 2019.
The ballet premiered at the Arena di Verona in Italy in 2019. It is choreographed by Johan Kobborg, while the set is designed by David Umemoto.
In a statement on their website, the Royal Albert Hall said that “Set to Prokofiev’s powerful, exquisite score, and with a striking stage set design by Canadian-based sculptor David Umemoto, the story follows the narrative of Shakespeare’s play with the classical ballet vocabulary as its core language.”
Tickets can be purchased online, while those purchased for the cancelled performances will be valid for the new date.
Words by Ellen Leslie
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Image: Royal Albert Hall