Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College continues its 2015-16 season with Moscow Festival Ballet’s double bill of one-act ballets, Romeo and Juliet and Carmen, on Saturday, March 5, 2016 at 8pm. Tickets are $36-45 and can be purchased at BrooklynCenter.org or by calling the box office at 718-951-4500 (Tue-Sat, 1pm-6pm).

The power of love and the finality of death collide as two of the greatest tragic masterpieces of all time are paired in an evening of one-act ballets. The program begins with a restaging of Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet, set to the music of Tchaikovsky and choreographed by legendary Bolshoi principle dancer Elena Radchenko. This is followed by Alberto Alonso’s fiery Carmen, inspired by Bizet’s sensuous and spirited opera.

Moscow Festival Ballet’s 2016 spring tour of Romeo and Juliet will feature Maria Kluyeva, Maria Sokolnikova, and Olga Gudkova sharing the role of the ill-fated Juliet, with her star-crossed lover Romeo double-cast with Nurlan Kinerbaev and Dmitry Sitkevich. The rest of the cast includes Evgeniy Rudakov (Tibald), Anton Baglikov (Mercutio), Denis Onufriychuk (Paris), Dmitry Romanov (Lord Capulet), Natalia Ivanova (Lady Capulet), Alina Stenina (Nurse), and Ivan Zviagincev (Priest). 

Created especially for celebrated Russian ballerina Maya Plisetskaya (1925-2015), Carmen features a score by Plisetskaya’s husband Rodion Shchedrin (inspired heavily by Georges Bizet’s opera) with choreography by Alberto Alonso. It received its world premiere in 1967 in Moscow. Casting for Carmen includes Maria Klyeva (Carmen), Alexander Daev (Don José), Denis Onufriychuk (the Toreador), Evgeniy Rudakov (Corregidor), and Elena Khorosheva (Fate), with Olga Sharikova, Malika Tokkozhina, Hanna Zimovchenko, and Daria Lednikova as the Tobacco Girls.