Divertimento No. 15

Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Divertimento No. 15 in B-flat major, K. 287, 1777)
Choreography: George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust
Staging: Francia Russell
Costume Design: Karinska
Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli
Duration: 36 minutes
Premiere: May 31, 1956; New York City Ballet (Mozart Festival, Stratford, Connecticut)
Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: February 5, 1991

Mara Vinson in Divertimento No. 15.
Photo © Angela Sterling

Divertimento No. 15 is the second ballet that Balanchine created to Mozart’s Divertimento in B-flat major (K. 287), a score the choreographer avowed “is one I admire most in the world.” Composed in 1777 for the name day of Countess Maria Antonia Lodron and intended, like so much music in the eighteenth century, as entertainment at aristocratic social events, this Divertimento is a splendid example of Mozart’s genius for making a masterpiece out of even the most occasional music. Mozart himself loved to play the virtuoso first violin part and, after one performance, wrote to his father: “It made everybody sit up. I played as though I were the greatest violinist in Europe.”

Of the relationship between the earlier ballet, called Caracole (1952), and the later one, there is some disagreement. Balanchine’s own account is that no one could remember Caracole in 1956 and that he completely reworked it for the bicentennial celebration of Mozart's birth at the American Shakespeare Festival. But, according to Tanaquil LeClercq and Diana Adams, who were in the original casts of both versions, the steps for Caracole and Divertimento No. 15 are virtually identical, and it is incorrect to say that no one could remember the earlier work.

A pure dance ballet that seeks to visualize the understated elegance, exquisite filigree, and sweet playfulness of Mozart’s score, Divertimento No. 15 has been characterized by dance historian Nancy Reynolds as “cut crystal rather than diamond glitter.” Among its numerous fine moments are (in the Theme and Variations section) delicately-wrought variations for four ballerinas; one of the great male variations in the ballet repertoire; and the climactic allegro variation, where the fifth ballerina’s virtuosity must match the violinists’. According to Francia Russell (who danced one of the ballerina roles and has staged the work for numerous European companies) and Kent Stowell (who performed the male variation), most of the steps in the ballet are not unusually demanding technically, but they must be danced beautifully—by dancers who are very musical.

Although Balanchine was dissatisfied with his choreography for Divertimento No. 15, feeling it did not come up to the standard set by the composer, the work has been not only admired but loved by audiences and dancers alike. “Celestial” is a word that has been used to describe it, and, indeed, a vision of ideal beauty is the ballet’s essence. Music critic Louis Biancolli offered this tribute: “[The ballet] is so close to the music that the chances are no company short of a band of dancing Mozarts will ever be able to attain either the perfection of Mozart or the ingenuity of Balanchine; the gap will always remain between what both Mozart and Balanchine have devised and what is humanly possible in the dance. Think of trying to communicate in motion the breathing, soaring line of an Andante that is almost the closest thing to divine grace in music.”

Divertimento No. 15 has been in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s repertory since 1991, when Francia Russell staged it for the Company’s season-long tribute to Mozart on the 200th anniversary of his death.

Notes by Jeanie Thomas; edited by Doug Fullington 2009.