Q: How many orchestra members are in the PNB Orchestra?
A: It varies from program to program. For Don Quixote, we’ll have 62-64 musicians. It’s a pretty big symphony orchestra. When you come to the show, it’s always fun to come and look in {the pit} because there are a lot of people down […]
Q: How large is the production? In comparison to other ballets in our repertory?
There are about 300 costumes, but many of them are duplicates. [Dutch National Ballet] had more people on stage than we will. They also built a lot of extra costumes, some of which haven’t been worn yet. […]
Don Quixote: Q&A with Norbert Herriges, PNB’s Technical Director
Q: How large is this production of Don Quixote in terms of sets, backdrops, props, etc.?
A: The sets and props filled seven 40′ high cube containers; costumes filled another container. These are the large containers that you […]
I’m Tom Dziekonski, a violinist in the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra. For Nutcracker, I’m the person that decorates the pit with the wacky lights and who writes the orchestral gags for the “nutty” show on Christmas Eve. (The Pink Panther outfit you may have seen during the midnight chime I got from London.)
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production is larger than life in many ways. Here a handful of fun facts to help answer this question.
PNB’s Nutcracker debuted on December 13, 1983 at the Seattle Center Opera House (now McCaw Hall); over 1.5 million people have seen PNB’s Nutcracker.
Enduring Duos
Love Stories… Those great enduring duos: Princess Aurora and her Prince (I know he has a name, but does anyone know it?). Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. Romeo and Juliet. Peanut Butter and Jelly… I know. PB & J are inanimate objects, incapable of offering or experiencing love, but you can’t […]
Dear Friends,
We have presented entire programs by one choreographer before, with several by George Balanchine and others featuring Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp. I never would have guessed that we would be […]
POLYPHONIA©
Music: György Ligeti (Desordre from Études pour piano, premier livre, 1985; Arc-en-ciel from Études pour piano, premier livre, 1985; No. 4 Tempo di Valse from Musica Ricercata, 1951-53; Invention, 1948; No. 8 Vivace energico from Musica […]
After the Rain pas de deux
Music: Arvo Pärt (Spiegel im Spiegel, 1978)
Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon
Staging: Damian Smith
Costume Design: Holly Hynes
Lighting Design: Mark Stanley
PREMIERE: January 22, 2005; New York City Ballet
PNB PREMIERE: September 20, 2008
“In the past twenty years, only one ballet choreographer has emerged whose work has set off widespread, international excitement: Christopher Wheeldon.” —The New Yorker
“Wheeldon [is] regarded as one of the hottest classical choreographers of his generation…His work has a uniquely transatlantic quality: romantic and unsettling, lush and cerebral, modern […]