Serenade is the first original ballet George Balanchine created in the United States, choreographing on students from the fledgling School of American Ballet.
There are four movements in Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Serenade in C for string orchestra. Balanchine switched the order of the movements for the ballet. Making the more up-tempo fourth movement come before the melancholy third movement closes the dance piece.
Balanchine loved Tchaikovsky’s music, setting 14 of his eighty-something dances to Tchaikovsky works. Of the composer Balanchine said, “Imagine yourself in a church, and suddenly the organ starts playing overwhelmingly grand music in all its registers. And you stand there with mouth agape in astonishment. That’s how I always felt about Tchaikovsky. He was like a father to me.”
17 dancers stand in the iconic opening pose with their right arms extended as if to block the glare of the sun from their eyes.
Each of the long, Romantic-style tutus the pointe dancers wear are made up of five layers and 25 to 30 yards of tulle each. Learn more about the different types of tutus in our blog post!
1934: the premiere date of the first Serenade performance by School of American Ballet students
1978: the year Serenade premiered at Pacific Northwest Ballet, expertly staged by PNB’s founding artistic director, Francia Russell.
Pacific Northwest Ballet last performed Serenade (at Carla Körbes’ retirement celebration) in 2015. (Serenade was last performed at PNB by Pacific Northwest Ballet School students in the 2022/23 end-of-year School Performance.)
Extra fun fact: Francia Russell was among the first people who George Balanchine personally taught to be a repetiteur of his works, and was one of the first stagers for The George Balanchine Trust, the organization responsible for maintaining Balanchine’s artistic legacy including staging works around the world. With The George Balanchine Trust, Francia was the first person to stage Balanchine’s works at the Kirov Ballet (now called the Mariinsky Ballet in the post-Soviet era) in St. Petersburg (where Balanchine did his ballet training and first performed) in 1988, five years after his death.
Sources:
“Serenade” New York City Ballet: https://www.nycballet.com/discover/ballet-repertory/serenade
“How Tchaikovsky Raised the Bar for Ballet Music” Chicago Symphony Orchestra: https://cso.org/experience/article/29419/how-tchaikovsky-raised-the-bar-for-ballet-mus
“The Story of the Tutu” Dance Magazine: https://dancemagazine.com/the-story-of-the-tutu/
“Preserving Balanchine’s Ballet Legacy 30 Years Later” NPR: https://www.npr.org/2013/07/27/185807882/preserving-balanchines-ballet-legacy-30-years-later
