Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky) a literary program. Thus, Balakirev had transformed "King Lear" into an instrumental drama and now offered it as a model to Tchaikovsky. While basing "Romeo and Juliet" on "King Lear" was Balakirev's suggestion, reducing the plot of the former to one central conflict and then combining it with the binary structure of sonata form was Tchaikovsky's idea. However, executing that plot in the music we know today came only after two radical revisions. The first version of "Romeo and Juliet" contained basically an opening fugato and a confrontation of the two themes—exactly what an academically trained composer might be expected
Romeo and Juliet original storyline. Professional performances of Shakespeare in the mid-19th century had two particular features: firstly, they were generally star vehicles, with supporting roles cut or marginalised to give greater prominence to the central characters. Secondly, they were "pictorial", placing the action on spectacular and elaborate sets (requiring lengthy pauses for scene changes) and with the frequent use of tableaux. Henry Irving's 1882 production at the Lyceum Theatre (with himself as Romeo and Ellen Terry as Juliet) is considered an archetype of the pictorial style. In 1895, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson took over from Irving and laid the groundwork for a more