''The Judas Tree'' is a one-act ballet created by

Kenneth MacMillan Sir Kenneth MacMillan (11 December 192929 October 1992) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer who was artistic director of the Royal Ballet in London between 1970 and 1977, and its principal choreographer from 1977 until his death. E ...

in 1992 for the

Royal Ballet The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in ...

. The music is by

Brian Elias Brian Elias (born 30 August 1948) is a British composer. Biography Brian Elias was born in Bombay, India, and has lived in the U.K. since he was thirteen years old. After studying at the Royal College of Music he undertook private studies with ...

. The first performance was on 19 March 1992, at the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Ope ...

, Covent Garden. The only clue MacMillan gave in order to understand his intentions is a programme note quoting

Kahlil Gibran Gibran Khalil Gibran ( ar, جُبْرَان خَلِيل جُبْرَان, , , or , ; January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran (pronounced ), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist ...

's poem "On Crime and Punishment": ‘ a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the wrongdoer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all’."The Judas Tree". Kenneth MacMillan official Website. According to the information at MacMillan's official website, this ballet is about "betrayal and guilt, individual and communal". The plot references the biblical betrayal story of the

Kiss of Judas The kiss of Judas, also known as the Betrayal of Christ, is the act with which Judas identified Jesus to the multitude with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests and elders of the people to arrest him, according to the Synoptic ...

, which leads directly to the arrest of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

and his later crucifixion. In this same source it is said that MacMillan was also thinking of contemporary "instances of betrayal, such as the

Tiananmen Square massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

in 1989." Since the protesting students demanding democratic reforms were taken down by the Chinese army, "in spite of politicians’ assurances that there would be no violence". The Royal Ballet website describes it like this: "The Judas Tree is MacMillan's final ballet, and still his most controversial. MacMillan commissioned a score from Brian Elias for the ballet, which had its premiere in 1992. Both MacMillan and Elias were inspired not only by Biblical stories of betrayal but also by contemporary events – the violence in Tiananmen Square; the creation of the financial district in Canary Wharf. As MacMillan admitted of the finished work, ‘There are things in me that are untapped and that have come out in this ballet that I find frightening’." The current production of the ballet is staged in a way that is reminiscent of ''

West Side Story ''West Side Story'' is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Inspired by William Shakespeare's play '' Romeo and Juliet'', the story is set in the mid ...

''. A single woman is in the presence of three main male dancers in a bleak urban landscape. Although it is not explicit in the choreography, the woman is physically abused at several points, raped, and eventually murdered by a wider gang. Although she is sometimes portrayed as a victim, she is not always a passive participant, but also wields what power she has to attract, rebut or humiliate some of her suitors. The narrative ends with one of her lovers being blamed for her death, and betrayed by a kiss from the real culprit. The man is murdered by the gang, and the culprit then hangs himself from the scaffolding. The programme notes recommend that this is not a ballet for children under the age of 12.

Original cast

Irek Mukhamedov Irek Dzhavdatovich Mukhamedov OBE (russian: Ирек Джавдатович Мухамедов: tt-Cyrl, Ирек Җәүдәт улы Мөхәммәтев; born 8 March 1960), is a Soviet-born British ballet dancer of Tatar origin who has danced ...

* Viviana Durante *

Michael Nunn Michael John Nunn (born April 14, 1963) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1984 to 2002. He is a two-weight world champion, having held the IBF middleweight title from 1988 to 1991, and the WBA super middleweight title ...

* Mark Silver * Luke Heydon

Notes

Ballets by Kenneth MacMillan 1992 ballet premieres {{ballet-stub