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Giselle falls for a young man she believes to be a fellow villager, unaware that he is a nobleman with another life. When the deception is revealed, their story passes into a supernatural realm ruled by the Wilis. Adolphe Adam’s score accompanies a ballet about betrayal, devotion, and mercy.
At a Christmas celebration, a young girl receives a wooden nutcracker from the mysterious Drosselmeyer. As night falls, the familiar room becomes a place of battles, transformation, and wonder. Set to Tchaikovsky’s score, the ballet travels from a family party into an enchanted world of snow and sweets.
The fairy Carabosse curses Princess Aurora, but the Lilac Fairy softens the spell into a sleep lasting a hundred years. A prince’s journey offers the possibility of an awakening. Tchaikovsky and Petipa’s fairytale ballet brings together courtly celebration, opposing magical powers, and a story of enduring hope.
A ballet created for students of the School of American Ballet, set to Johann Sebastian Bach's Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772–801.
A Fairy Tale or A Magic Tale (Un Conte de fées), a ballet fantastique, was a ballet in one act choreographed by Marius Petipa to music by (?) Richter. The ballet was first presented as an examination piece by students of the Imperial Ballet School on April 4/16 (Julian/Gregorian calendar dates), 1891, in the theatre of the Imperial Ballet School, St. Petersburg, Russia. Anna Pavlova participated in this ballet when she was ten years old during her first year as a student at the Imperial Ballet School. It was the first ballet she ever danced in at the Mariinsky Theatre. (Her last performance at the Mariinsky would be as Nikiya in La Bayadère in 1914.)
Birthe flirts with Mogens while her betrothed Ove remains behind near an elf-hill. Enchanted by elf maidens, Ove is rescued by Hilda, who discovers she is a human changeling raised among trolls. After Hilda and Ove reunite, Mogens marries Birthe, revealed to be the troll child, and Hilda and Ove celebrate their wedding.
A Marriage During the Regency (Un Mariage sous la Régence, Брак во времена регентства) is a ballet in 2 acts, with libretto and choreography by Marius Petipa and music by Cesare Pugni. The ballet was first presented by the Imperial Ballet on December 18/30 (Julian/Gregorian calendar dates), 1858, at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Principal dancers: Mariia Surovshchikova-Petipa (as the Countess Matilda) and Christian Johansson (as the Count), Timofei Stukolkin, Marfa Muravyova, Anna Prikhunova, and Lev Ivanov. In 1870 Marius Petipa restaged this ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre.
The first act follows Shakespeare's familiar story of lovers and fairies. The second act is a classical wedding celebration, omitting Shakespeare's play-within-a-play finale.
At a Russian country house in 1850, Natalia falls for Belaiev, her son's young tutor. A series of relationships and pas de deux lead to Belaiev's departure after the household discovers their embraces. Natalia despairs, but Belaiev returns unseen to leave her the rose she gave him.
Melissa Barak’s ballet to Benjamin Britten’s 1934 Simple Symphony for string orchestra, inspired by Balanchine’s La source and Raymonda Variations. Barak also designed the women’s costumes.
A Suite of Dances is a ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins to Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites. The ballet was created for Mikhail Baryshnikov and premiered on March 3, 1994, at the New York State Theater.
A couturier despairs when his work is disliked and kills himself with a pair of scissors. The ballet drew inspiration from the story of chef François Vatel, who died by suicide after a delayed fish delivery for a royal banquet.
In this five-scene ballet based on the Faust legend, a female devil persuades Faust to trade his soul for sexual fulfillment and renewed youth. After Faust falls in love with Marguerite, he tears up the contract; both die as a result.
Adagio Hammerklavier is a ballet choreographed by Hans van Manen to the Adagio from Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29, Hammerklavier. The ballet is plotless and danced by three couples. Van Manen made Adagio Hammerklavier for the Dutch National Ballet, and it premiered on 4 October 1973, at the Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam.
The ballet is an allegory of the cycle of man’s life; the world in which he lives is represented by a stage on which a ballet is being created: Adam is cast as the principal dancer, Omnipotence is represented by the Stage Director and Adam’s Fates by the Designer, Wardrobe Mistress and Dresser. Adam falls in love, marries, and achieves power, but his triumph is brief; his world crumbles about him, he is stripped of his glory, and a new generation (Understudy) takes his place. He seeks distraction in dissipation but everyone deserts him and he is left alone to face Death.
A 'space age quintet' ballet set to John Adams's 1994 Violin Concerto. The concerto's third movement had previously been performed as the separate ballet X-Ray.
Adolescence (Prelude and Song) was an early modern dance solo choreographed by Martha Graham to music by Paul Hindemith. It premiered on March 2, 1929, at the Booth Theatre in New York City. The all-solo program included two other new works, Danza and Resurrection, and eight previously performed pieces: Dance, Immigrant, Valses Sentimentales, Four Insincerities, Tanagra, Two Variations from Sonatina, Fragilité and Fragments. Seattle's Week Town Crier described the work as depicting youth, "curious, yearning, fearful, swept away by strange visions and dreams. A very difficult, complex thing made sweepingly beautiful by its utter simplicity and sincerity." Dance Magazines reviewer called the solo "delicate and sensitive." The New York Times critic wrote, "The dancer has achieved an exquisite result. Simple and stark in design, it is at the same time warm and tender in mood, childishly frank and yet deft and penetrating. It is the happiest use Miss Graham has yet made of her economy of movement, and perhaps the least inclined in the direction of ugliness."
A ballet set to Ravel's orchestration of Valses nobles et sentimentales, an eight-waltz suite.
After the Rain is a ballet choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon on New York City Ballet to music of Arvo Pärt, including Tabula Rasa (first movement, Ludus) and Spiegel im Spiegel. The ballet premiered on January 22, 2005, at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center. The final pas de deux is commonly performed separately from the remainder of the ballet.
Afternoon of a Faun is a neoclassical ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins to Claude Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. The ballet features two young dancers meeting at a rehearsal studio. Robbins was influenced by Stéphane Mallarmé's poem L'après-midi d'un faune, the inspiration for Debussy's score, as well as Vaslav Nijinsky's 1912 ballet to the same score, and his own observation of dancers. The ballet was made for the New York City Ballet, and premiered on May 14, 1953, at the City Center of Music and Drama, with the two roles of the ballet originated by Tanaquil Le Clercq and Francisco Moncion. Afternoon of a Faun has since been performed by various other ballet companies.
A faun/dancer capers and bathes within three pools of light that appear successively at center, left and right stage. The setting differs from Nijinsky's version and uses similar costuming.
Agon is a 25-minute ballet for twelve dancers, with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by George Balanchine. It was recognized as a landmark at its premiere and has continued to be regarded as such ever since. The score was commissioned by the New York City Ballet. Stravinsky began composition in December 1953 but was interrupted the next year; he resumed work in 1956 and concluded on April 27, 1957. The music was premiered in Los Angeles at UCLA's Royce Hall on June 17, 1957, conducted by Robert Craft. Stravinsky himself conducted the sessions for the work's first recording the following day. Agon was first performed on stage by the City Ballet at the City Center of Music and Drama on November 27, 1957. The composition's long gestation period covers an interesting juncture in Stravinsky's composing career, in which he moved from a diatonic musical idiom to one based on twelve-tone technique; the score thus demonstrates a unique symbiosis of musical idioms. The work's title, agon, is a Greek word that means “contest," “protagonist," “anguish” or “struggle." The ballet has no story, but consists of a series of dance movements in which various groups of dancers interact in pairs, trios, quartets, etc. A number of the movements are based on 17th-century French court dances – saraband, galliard and bransle. Agon was immediately hailed as a groundbreaking triumph. John Martin in The New York Times described the choreography as "complex, ingenious and fantastically off the beaten path formally," and the music as "a marvelous piece of consistent construction." Edwin Denby, writing a short while after the premiere, reported that the work had been "given an enormous ovation last winter by the opening-night audience. The balcony stood up shouting and whistling when the choreographer took his bow. Downstairs, people came out into the lobby, their eyes bright as if the piece had been champagne. Marcel Duchamp, the painter, said he felt the way he had after the opening of Le Sacre. At later performances, Agon continued to be vehemently applauded." Alastair Macaulay, in a Times article marking the premiere's 50th anniversary, characterized the work as "astounding, full of shapes, phrases, rhythms, sounds that hadn't been encountered before but embodied New York modernism itself.... Arlene Croce, later dance critic of The New Yorker, said she did not sleep for a week." During the years since it was introduced, Agon has remained in the City Ballet repertoire, has been performed all over the world, and is regularly described using language such as "an instant classic," "Balanchine's 1957 masterpiece," and "one of the greatest of Balanchine's achievements."
Alice's parents are holding a garden party. She is very upset to see her friend Jack, the gardener's boy, dismissed by her mother on a false charge of stealing a jam tart. Lewis Carroll, a friend of the family, is present and to console her he offers to take her photograph. Alice is surprised to see him emerge from his camera cloth as a White Rabbit and when he disappears into his camera bag she follows him and falls down into Wonderland. She sees a magical garden which she cannot enter because all the doors are locked. Jack appears, transformed into the Knave of Hearts, and accused by the Queen of Hearts of stealing a tray of tarts. He is fleeing from her, her guards and the White Rabbit. Alice tries to follow but the door closes before her. She is too big to get through the only unlocked door. She is given a bottle and when she drinks from it she becomes too small to reach the door handle. She then successively becomes very large and so small that she can swim, together with various animals, in a lake formed by her tears. After this, she arranges a race to dry them off. The White Rabbit then leads her further into Wonderland, where she is given a piece of paper inviting a Duchess to attend the Queen of Hearts' croquet party. Alice carries the invitation into a cottage, where she finds the Duchess nursing a baby while a cook makes sausages. The duchess is delighted at the invitation, while the cook is resentful, and the atmosphere becomes violent apart from an interval when a mysterious Cheshire Cat appears. Alice tries to protect the baby, but it turns into a pig and the Duchess takes it to be turned into sausages. The White Rabbit reappears, and then the Knave, who is carrying the tarts and pursued by the Queen's guards. The White Rabbit conceals them and then has to go to the garden party. Alice wants to go with him but the White Rabbit and Knave agree that it is too dangerous for her to be in the presence of the bad-tempered Queen and blindfold her to stop her. Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for directions where to go, but his instructions are vague and confusing. She then finds herself at the tea party of a Mad Hatter, a March Hare and a Dormouse. She escapes and then finds herself alone and lost, but her spirits are lifted by a caterpillar perched on a mushroom, who gives her a piece of mushroom. She eats the mushroom and the doors and walls disappear so that at last she is able to enter the magic garden. The Knave appears, still pursued by the Queen and her guards, and he escapes, followed by the White Rabbit and Alice. Alice is in the Queen's garden, and she finds the gardeners painting the roses red, as they have mistakenly planted white ones even though the Queen detests them. The Queen arrives, together with the King, the Duchess and the cook. The gardeners have not finished painting the roses and the Queen orders their execution. Alice and the White Rabbit smuggle the gardeners away while the executioner is distracted by the seductive cook. The Queen shows off her skill at dancing, after which she plays croquet with the Duchess. Flamingos are the mallets and hedgehogs the balls. The knave has taken a great risk to be with Alice and they are reunited. The Duchess is much better than the Queen at croquet, who resorts to cheating. The Duchess challenges the Queen, who orders her execution, but Alice helps the Duchess to escape while the King calms the Queen down. The Knave is again reunited with Alice but he is caught and the Queen orders him to be taken to the castle to stand trial. The Cheshire Cat reappears and Alice follows the Knave to the castle. At the trial, the witnesses accuse the Knave. The King insists that the Knave is heard in his own defence, but this produces little effect and so Alice intervenes, and together they win over everyone but the Queen, who seizes an axe to carry out the execution herself. The knave and Alice try to escape with the help of the White Rabbit and the witnesses, but the Queen finds them. Unable to escape, Alice pushes over a witness, who falls on someone else and starts a chain reaction of all the court falling over. They are only playing cards. Alice wakes up.
Allegro Brillante is a ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 3. The ballet is danced by a principal couple and a corps de ballet of eight. Balanchine said it "contains everything I knew about classical ballet." Allegro Brillante was made for the New York City Ballet, and premiered on March 1, 1956, at the City Center of Music and Drama, with Maria Tallchief and Nicholas Magallanes originating the two principal roles.
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