Blues

Ingrid Bugge, from "Romeo and Juliet", by William Shakespeare

Ingrid Bugge promises to pull you into her world of fascination...

Romeo:
"O brawlig love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well´seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!"

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act I Scene I  

"Who cannot recall lovely summer nights when the forces of nature seem ripe for development and yet sunk in drowsy languor_intense heat mingled with exuberant vigour, fervid force, and silent freshness? 

The nightingale´s song comes from the depths of the grove. The flower-cups are half closed. A pale lustre ilumines the foliage of the forest and the outline of the hills. This profound repose conceals, we feel, a fertile force; beneath the retiring melancholy of nature lies hidden burning emotion. Beneath the pallor and coolness of night we divine restrained ardours; each flower brooding in silence is longing to bloom forth. Such is the peculiar atmosphere with which Shakespeare has enveloped one of his most wonderful creations, Romeo and Juliet"

Philarète Chasles (1798-1873)

                             

Ballet in Three Acts

The ballet is set in Verona (Italy)

Ingrid Bugge

Romeo: (to Juliet, touching her hand)
  "If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentles sin is this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss".
Juliet:
"Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims´hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers´kiss"

From "Romeo and Juliet", Act I Scene V 

Act I

Scene I: The market place

Romeo, son of Montague, tries unsuccessfully to declare his love for Rosaline and is consoled by his friends Mercutio and Benvolio. As day breaks and the townspeople meet in the market place, a quarrel develops between Tybalt, a nephew of Capulet, and Romeo and his friends. The Capulets and Montagues are sworn enemies and a fight soon begins. The Lords Montague and Capulet join in the fray, which is stopped by the appearance of the Prince of Verona, who commands the families to end their feud.

Scene II: Juliet´s ante-room in the Capulet´s house

Juliet, playing with her nurse, is interrupted by her parents, Lord and Lady Capulet. They present her to Paris, a wealthy young nobleman who has asked for her hand in marriage.

Scene III: Outside the Capulet´s house

Guests arrive for a ball at the Capulet´s house. Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio, disguised in masks, decide to go in pursuit of Rosaline.

Scene IV: The ballroom

Romeo and his friends arrive at the height of the festivities. The guests watch Juliet dance. Mercutio, seeing that Romeo is entranced by her, dances to distract attention from him. Tybalt recognizes Romeo and orders him to leave, but Capulet intervenes and welcomes him as a guest in his house.

Scene V: Outside the Capulet´s house

As the guests leave the ball, Capulet restrains Tybalt from pursuing Romeo.

Scene VI: Juliet´s balcony

Unable to sleep, Juliet comes out on to her balcony and is thinking of Romeo when suddenly he appears in the garden. They confess their love for each other.

Indrid Bugge

Romeo:
  "O sweet Juliet,
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate,
And in my temper soften´d valour´s steel!" 

From "Romeo and Juliet", Act III Scene I

Act II

Scene I: The market place

Romeo can think only of Juliet and, as a wedding procession passes, he dreams of the day when he will marry her. In the meantime, Juliet´s nurse pushes her way through the crowds in search of Romeo to give him a letter from Juliet. He reads that Juliet has consented to be his wife.

Scene II: The chapel

The lovers are secretly married by Friar Laurence, who hopes that their union will end the strife between the Montagues and Capulets.

Scene III: The market place

Interrupting the revelry, Tybalt fights with Mercutio and kills him. Romeo avenges the death of his friend and is exiled.

Ingrid Bugge

Juliet:
"Art thou gone so? my lord, my love, my friend!
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days:
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo!"

From "Romeo and Juliet", Act III Scene III

 

Juliet:

"Ay me!"

Romeo:

"She speaks!

O, speak again , bright angel! for thou art

as glorious to this night, being o´er my head,

As is a winged messenger of heaven

Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes

O mortals that fall back to gaze on him 

When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air"

Juliet: 

"O Romeo! Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"

Act II Scene II 

Ingrid Bugge

Juliet:
"Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day,
it was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear,
 Nightly she sings on your pom´granate tree,
Believe me love, it was the nightingale!"

From "Romeo and Juliet", Act III Scene V

Act III

Scene I: The bedroom

At dawn next morning the household is stirring and Romeo must go. He embraces Juliet and leaves as her parents enter with Paris. Juliet refuses to marry Paris and, hurt by her rebuff, he goes off. Juliet´s parents are angry and threaten to disown her. Juliet rushes to see Friar Laurence.

Scene II: The chapel

Juliet falls at the Fiar´s feet and begs for his help. He gives her a phial of potion which will make her fall into a deathlike sleep. Her parents, believing her to be death, will bury her in the family tomb. Meanwhile Romeo, warned by Friar Laurence, will return under cover of darkness and take her away from Verona.

Scene III: The bedroom

That evening Juliet agrees to marry Paris; but the next morning when her parents arrive with him they find her apparently lifeless on the bed.

Scene IV: The Capulet family crypt

Romeo, who has not received the Friar´s message, returns to Verona stunned by grief at the news of Juliet´s death. Disguised as a monk, he enters the crypt, and finding Paris by Julie´s body, kills him. Believing Juliet to be dead, Romeo drinks a phial of poison, Juliet awakes and, finding Romeo dead, stabs herself.

Ingrid Bugge, from "Romeo and Juliet (Ghost Dance)" 2013

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
 Or bends with the remover to remove;
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests an is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth´s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love´s not Time´s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle´s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved"

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Sonnet, CXVI