Dear Friends,
Serenade, the first work created by George Balanchine after his arrival in America, is arguably the most iconic of all Balanchine works. Performed by dozens of ballet companies and schools worldwide, Serenade lives in dancers’ limbs, lines, and hearts. As the synchronized sweep of musicians’ bows travel across violins, violas, and celli, and the curtain ascends revealing a sea of billowing blue tulle, an audible gasp can be heard. The costumes you are about to see are all new, expertly created by our costume shop.
PNB performed Serenade many times since Francia Russell’s first staging in 1978, though someone neglected to program it since Carla Körbes’ retirement in 2015…Carla is back to stage Serenade alongside PNB faculty member Dana Hanson, who set the work for PNB School and performed it many times during her sixteen-year career with New York City Ballet. It has been a joy to watch Carla and Dana pass the torch to our dancers who accept the honor with true reverence.
I’ve read many accounts of the auspicious creation of Serenade. Author Toni Bentley wrote an inspired book titled Serenade: A Balanchine Story in 2022. I highly recommend it. I’ve pulled anecdotes and facts from her writing. The first performance was a total wash-out. The corps de ballet took their opening pose with right arms extended towards the singular beam of light. At that exact moment, torrential rain pelted the stage. The audience scrambled for cover, a tarp was dragged over the piano, which was hidden behind a bush, while soaked dancers trudged to makeshift dressing rooms after the premiere that wasn’t. The show was rescheduled for the following night. Toni reports Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein went shopping at Bloomingdales for the corps men’s costumes. They opted for red pants with brown polo shirts! Lincoln thought they looked good. The women’s costumes, a dark blue, were cut too low in the front, so the dancers elected to wear them backwards.
The stories of Serenade are legend, like the one about the dancer who fell to the floor by accident. Balanchine added it to his choreography. For the first rehearsal, seventeen dancers showed up. Seventeen—a potentially maddening number for a classical ballet choreographer who reveled in the aesthetic merits of symmetry. Undaunted, Balanchine placed the dancers in two intersecting diamonds of nine with the seventeenth dancer serving as the point of two diamonds. Then there is the moment Balanchine asked his cast to stand on their heels and swing their toes into a near one-hundred-and-eighty-degree line. The concept of “turnout”, a defining tenet of classical ballet, embodied in this instant like a flash of lightning. Toni confirmed a story I heard long ago. Martha Graham, a contemporary of Balanchine’s, who helped define modern dance in America, burst into tears at the simplicity and profundity of the gesture.
From auspicious beginnings, Serenade heralded a new era of ballet in America, drawing from, building upon, and at times rejecting European traditions. Alexei Ratmansky and Jessica Lang are largely doing the same. Alexei’s Pictures at an Exhibition, expertly staged for us by original cast member Amar Ramasar, was created on the dancers of Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, 80 years after Serenade. Alexei’s work is endlessly inventive, incorporating challenging technique and winning moments of wit. Like Balanchine, he reveres his predecessors and mines ballet’s rich history to break new ground. Both allow their deep appreciation of music to guide their choreography.
Jessica created Pages as a co-commission between PNB and Ballet Sun Valley. As part of the development process, Jessica spent a week at Ernest Hemingway House in Ketchum, Idaho. Mary Ellen Bartley’s photos of well-worn books decorated the walls, offering inspiration. The intersection of characters’ lives and readers’ lives was a departure point for Jessica’s creation. The music of David Lang and spoken text added immeasurably. We are excited to see this atmospheric ballet grace our stage. It marks the eighth work by Jessica to enter PNB’s repertoire with plans for more in the future.
