Baz Luhrmann's star-crossed lovers are headed back to Cleveland, thirty years after their first close-up. The Cleveland Orchestra announced that the “William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet” global tour will stop at Severance Music Center on Jan. 28, 2027, bringing the 1996 film to a cinema-scale screen paired with a live hybrid ensemble.
The stop is part of a GEA Live production marking the 30th anniversary of the film's original release, according to cleveland.com. Rather than the Cleveland Orchestra performing alongside the film, the show will feature a visiting hybrid ensemble made up of orchestral musicians, rock musicians, vocalists, a DJ and electronics. The Cleveland Orchestra will not take part in the Jan. 28 performance, since it is slated to be in Miami that same night.
The production reimagines Shakespeare's classic as what the announcement calls a maximal, MTV-era pop opera, while preserving all of the film's original dialogue and action. Luhrmann, who directed the 1996 film, described the tour as a way to experience the movie's emotion, music, and theatricality in a completely new way, and he noted the film's enduring magic.
A Film That Made Verona Look Like Nothing Else
Luhrmann's “William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet” starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles when it hit theaters in November 1996. As time.com has noted, the film reimagined the play's Verona setting by filming in Mexico City and Veracruz instead of Italy, giving the story a jolt of color and chaos that helped define its look. The soundtrack, packed with mid-1990s hits, became inseparable from the movie's identity, and the film topped the box office in its day.
Tickets Go Out in Waves Starting This Week
Ticket access rolls out in two stages this week. Patrons and donors get first crack at seats starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, with the general public following at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. Purchases can be made at clevelandorchestra.com, and anyone with questions about tickets can call 216-231-1111.
Severance Music Center has hosted film-with-live-music events before, including a listed presentation of “The Snowman” with live orchestra and a showing of Alfred Hitchcock's “Psycho” accompanied by a live score, as detailed by clevelandclassical.com. Live-to-film concerts have also popped up elsewhere, including a Disney presentation of “Moana” featuring a live ensemble of Hollywood studio musicians and Polynesian rhythm players, according to a release from arshtcenter.org. The Romeo + Juliet tour follows that same broader trend of pairing beloved films with live musical performance, even as it brings its own traveling band rather than the venue's resident orchestra.
