Composer and pianist Sergei Prokofiev created many remarkable musical works, including the ballets Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, and Prodigal Son. Known for his masterful use of harmony and rhythm, his oeuvre, while innovative, appeals to a broad audience.
PNB's current program, ALL BALANCHINE, highlights the range and creativity George Balanchine brought to all of his work. The three featured ballets (Prodigal Son, Square Dance, and Stravinsky Violin Concerto) are selected from different periods of Balanchine's career to showcase his full breadth and depth as a choreographer. But if you were a Balanchine ballet, which would you be? Answer the questions in this quick quiz to reveal your result!
PNB first performed George Balanchine's Prodigal Son in 1984. Today on the PNB Blog, we celebrate Prodigal Son's 95th anniversary, as well as the beloved ballet's 40th anniversary here at PNB! Travel back in time with these archival photos of PNB's Prodigal Son performances through the years.
To capture Balanchine’s contribution to ballet in America in a few paragraphs is impossible, but I’ll attempt to scratch the surface. Balanchine, often in partnership with benefactor and arts impresario Lincoln Kirstein, founded the School of American Ballet and New York City Ballet. These institutions served as his dance laboratories. In these humble studios, with the help of dancers, musicians, and fellow artists, revelatory discoveries in ballet technique and dance-making came to life. Dancers hold Balanchine’s ballets in a place of reverence. That is especially true of PNB dancers, who enjoy a wealth of Balanchine repertoire and possess an innate technique and musicality acquired at schools like ours...
George Balanchine's Prodigal Son is a dramatic masterwork. The story was the idea of Boris Kochno, Serge Diaghilev’s assistant and frequent artistic collaborator. His libretto is based less on the biblical account and more on a passage from Alexander Pushkin’s short story, The Stationmaster (1830), in which the author describes engravings depicting scenes from the parable that hang in a postal station somewhere in Russia. Read on to learn Kochno's story of Prodigal Son.
Blog by PNB dancer Cecilia Iliesiu.
PNB’s opening night was magical! There had been a few rough rehearsals with tired bodies and swift musical tempos, but once that curtain went up Wednesday evening, we just danced!
Yesterday (Tuesday) was our one-and-only full rehearsal day before our four-days of consecutive Dress Rehearsals & Performances coming up. Company dancers warmed-up and rehearsed in the beautiful City Center Studio 4. My schedule for yesterday was as follows: