Serenade

About the show

Serenade is a ballet by George Balanchine to Tchaikovsky's 1880 Serenade for Strings in C, Op. 48. Serenade is credited as being George Balanchine's first full-length ballet in America. Using the students of his newly formed School of American Ballet, Balanchine choreographed this ballet for an American audience that had not been widely exposed to ballet before. Students of the School of American Ballet gave the first performance on Sunday, 10 June 1934 on the Felix M. Warburg estate in White Plains, N.Y., where Mozartiana had been danced the previous day. It was then presented by the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet on 6 December at the Avery Memorial Theatre of the Wadsworth Atheneum with sets by the painter William Littlefield. Balanchine presented the ballet as his response to the generous sponsorships he received during his immigration to America. The official premiere took place on 1 March 1935 with the American Ballet at the Adelphi Theatre, New York, conducted by Sandor Harmati. NYCB principal dancer Philip Neal chose to include Serenade in his farewell performance on Sunday, 13 June 2010. The blue tutus used in Serenade inspired the naming of the Balanchine crater on the planet Mercury.