Full-Length Ballet Returns to Verona with Romeo and Juliet

Verona’s Arena will restore full-length ballet to its festival programme in 2027 with a new Romeo and Juliet, choreographed by Manuel Legris to Prokofiev’s score.

Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko will dance the title roles at all four performances, scheduled for 18 and 26 June, 15 July and 20 August. The production brings a complete narrative ballet back to the amphitheatre 34 years after Spartacus in 1993.

That distinction concerns full-length ballet with orchestra, not the disappearance of dance from the Arena. Gala appearances, including Roberto Bolle and Friends, have continued to make the venue a prominent dance platform. The new project asks audiences to follow a sustained dramatic work across an entire evening.

Carlo Centolavigna will design the sets and Maurizio Millenotti the costumes. The visual conception draws on Franco Zeffirelli’s designs for his 1964 theatrical Romeo and Juliet, connecting a new ballet production with an earlier interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Manni and Andrijashenko’s partnership provides the centre of the staging, while Legris takes responsibility for a new choreographic reading. The Arena foundation’s orchestra and ballet company will participate, giving the project a substantial institutional presence within a festival better known internationally for opera.

The advertised running time is approximately two hours and 50 minutes, including two intervals. Performances are spread across the summer rather than concentrated in a single short run, allowing the ballet to sit alongside the festival’s operatic calendar.

Romeo and Juliet has an obvious geographical resonance in Verona, but the practical significance of the announcement lies in the scale of the commitment: a new staging, four dates, a full score and a complete dramatic arc. For the Arena, it marks a renewed investment in ballet as an evening-length component of its programme.