If you've made your Sleeping Beauty wake up to love and marriage in the post-war London of the 1940s, and before that, sent your Cinderella off to the ball in a pumpkin-shaped balloon, then an old-style tunics 'n' tights approach to Romeo and Juliet probably isn't on the cards.

But Scottish Ballet's new production, choreographed by Krzysztof Pastor and premiering at Edinburgh's Festival Theatre next week, is, quite typically for this company, taking a much bolder line on the familiar narrative and characters than simply updating the period and adjusting the design details accordingly.

And while this production may retain the play's Italian setting, its radical time-shifts, and its focus on how feuds and schisms are passed on from generation to generation, make it very much a two-act drama for the present day. "You have it still," murmurs Pastor, who last worked with the company in 2006 when they added his existing work, In Light and Shadow, to that year's Edinburgh International Festival programme. Saying this, the choreographer - raised and trained in Poland and now a resident member of the creative team at Dutch National Ballet - has in mind such shockingly brutal events as the 1993 killing of a couple now remembered as the Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo. They defied the religious and cultural differences that had flared into a zealous conflict between Serbia and Bosnia, fell in love and died because of it - although those accused, Serb snipers, still deny they fired the fatal shots.

"They were killed crossing the bridge that would have taken them to a new life," says Pastor. "And their bodies had to lie there, because nobody wanted to risk being shot by the other side if they tried to retrieve their own.

"Here in the UK, and in so many other places, there are fathers who would rather have their daughters dead than married to someone from the wrong' family, religion, culture. We have Romeo and Juliet everywhere, and it's important to me - it's important for the dancers - that we show this to the audience.

"This is a reality. And so I wanted it to be not just a love story, but perhaps also to have a message about peace, reconciliation. That the ballet should express something about society, about power and prejudice. That the dance should have these layers and messages. I don't believe, no, that it will change much - but it's my little voice. And for me, it's important to express this."

He shrugs, smiles briefly as he says this. His own formative years in Poland of the 1960s and 1970s have no doubt etched images of power-plays and idealistic struggles that now encourage him to choreograph a Romeo and Juliet that is more than just a costume drama.

How has he done this? By distilling what is usually a three-act ballet into two acts. The Prokofiev estate were of necessity approached, and agreed to the necessary trimming of the score. Now, when Juliet slips into her death-like sleep, there is a swift transition to the tomb - no lily-bearing girlfriends or mandolin-playing lads interposing what is, in so many productions, a saccharin divertissement that dilutes the tension instead of heightening it.

And what's this? No bumbling Nurse to chivvy a horrified Juliet from one set of marriage vows to another? Pastor suppresses a visible shudder at the thought of all the over-egged, desperately knockabout antics he's witnessed from Juliet's Nurse throughout his career as a dancer and choreographer. For this, his first time choreographing the story, he's having none of it. Instead, Juliet's mother draws closer to her daughter and in doing so adds in another layer of associations. Pastor explains: "I know the Nurse is there to bring comic relief' - but for me, in this version, I don't want that kind of humour. Also, I don't want to make fun of any of the women. I want to show not only the love story, the fighting, but also the woman's position in this society. Juliet's mother knows that as soon as Juliet reaches womanhood, she'll be married off - because that is what happened to her, as a girl. And she knows what's happening is terrible. And she knows it's not right. But at the same time, she obeys her husband. And she allows it to go on. Generation after generation.

The women know what this is like, to be given to a man they don't love - maybe even a stranger - but they still obey the men. Because that is how the family, the gang, is. How it keeps its power. And Juliet has no say. No say in what happens to her life, her body."

The vivid way in which Pastor conjures up a scenario in which women are little more than disposable chattels, sold for breeding purposes to the highest bidder, sounds so mediaeval it comes as something of a shock when he reveals that his Romeo and Juliet is set in the 1930s ... and in the 1950s ... and finally, in the 1990s/present day. The characters themselves do not change. They don't grow older - and, indeed, they don't escape their fate. It's a deft device to bring home the ongoing cycle of conflict and divisiveness that is handed down, without explanation or questioning, from father to child, so that cruel history repeats itself over and over.

"Who knows what first caused it all?" says Pastor. "But no-one asks any more. All they know is that there is no forgiveness, no middle ground. This is what you do to keep your family, your group, whole. Your bloodline and your honour intact. And even in the 1950s act, where we have this post-war optimism and Romeo's family are hoping that there will be peace between Montagues and Capulet, there is no way that Juliet's father, or Tybalt, can allow that. They would lose face. So someone has to fight, someone has to die.

But it also means Romeo goes to his wedding night a murderer, experiences his first night - his only night - with Juliet knowing love but also knowing he has killed someone close to her in blood. That is already a tragedy."