TODAY 58 YEARS AGO, the Stuttgart Ballet in its present incarnation was born with John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet. John Cranko had come to the Württemberg State Theatres two years earlier as Artistic Director and with élan built up what is today the Stuttgart Ballet. But it was this stormy love story, with its heated fencing scenes and heady carnival which won over the audience. After he had already created a first version of Romeo and Juliet to Sergei Prokofiev's music as a guest at the Scala in 1958, in Stuttgart the British choreographer let Marcia Haydée and Ray Barra in the leading roles experience the tender buds of first love and their self-chosen death. The way he translated the drama into steps and showed humanity in dance, made his ballet one of the most widely danced versions of the Shakespearean love story worldwide.

Photo: Marcia Haydée and Ray Barra, © Carlos