SOURCE: Näslund, Erik. “Miss Julie—The Ballet, 1950-1.” Theatre Research International 18, supplementary issue (1993): 16-23.

In the following essay, Näslund presents a history of the ballet version of Miss Julie.

If by a classic one means a work of art which has the ability to remain alive through various epochs and continue to engage people's attention, then the word is suitable to describe Birgit Cullberg's ballet Miss Julie. Perhaps one ought to adjust the notion slightly and describe the ballet as a ‘modern classic’, because we do not know how it will have endured in, let us say, fifty or a hundred years.

But as the ballet, since its première on 7 March 1950, has been staged in a further 35 productions all over the world (to 31 December 1992), so it can without doubt be said to bode well for the future. Taste changes from decade to decade and Cullberg's...