Fancy a night of forbidden passion with the NZSO?

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will present three versions of the most passionate love story ever told when it takes Romeo and Juliet on tour next month.

Romantics are in for a treat when the orchestra performs music from Prokofiev’s well-loved ballet Romeo and Juliet, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture.

The NZSO will also play orchestral excerpts from the dramatic symphony Romeo and Juliet by Berlioz.

NZSO Music Director Pietari Inkinen is returning from Europe to lead the tour of Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. He says audiences are in for a night of seduction in the concert hall.

“Everybody knows the story of Shakespeare’s star-crossed young lovers, but tell it with a full symphony orchestra and the power of the music will cut straight to your heart. This will be a perfect date night for concert-goers!”

The upcoming tour will also include performances of Mahler’s epic Sixth Symphony in Auckland and Wellington.

The 80-minute work is popularly known as the “Tragic Symphony” and features a massive orchestra of more than 100 players, including two harps, off-stage bells and the spectacle of three famous hammer-blows.

Mahler wrote the symphony at a happy time of his life but it appears to predict the tragedies which lay ahead, including the loss of his job, the death of a daughter and a serious heart condition.

The concerts cement Pietari Inkinen’s rising reputation as a Mahler specialist, working his way through all the composer’s symphonies with the NZSO.

The NZSO Romeo & Juliet/Mahler 6 tour is supported by Associate Sponsor Massey University.

Attached imagery features Pietari Inkinen; NZSO Double Bass player Alexander Gunchenko and First Violinist Kristina Zelinska as Romeo and Juliet.