New York City Ballet (David H. Koch Theater) 19 May 2023 - Balanchine + Ratmansky II | GoComGo.com

Balanchine + Ratmansky II

New York City Ballet (David H. Koch Theater), Main Stage, New York, USA
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Friday 19 May 2023
8 PM

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Important Info
Type: Ballet
City: New York, USA
Starts at: 20:00
Duration: 36min

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Overview

Classical meets contemporary: Balanchine’s one-act adaptation of ballet's beloved classic precedes Alexei Ratmansky’s abstract embodiment of Wassily Kandinsky’s bold watercolors, which set the stage as projections behind the dancers.

Balanchine’s distillation of Swan Lake into a single-act ballet was inspired by Lev Ivanov’s choreography for the original lakeside second act, including the luminous pas de deux between the mysterious swan at the center of the plot and her smitten swain. The ballet is also notable for its flock of black swans, a striking departure from the traditional white. Composer Mussorgsky’s most famous piano composition, Pictures at an Exhibition, became the basis for Alexei Ratmansky’s fourth ballet for the Company, a suite of dances that embrace the music’s changes in tenor and tempo as it moves between light and dark passages.

Distilling the classic story ballet Swan Lake into a drama-packed one-act work, Balanchine expertly depicts the rapture, heartache, and woe of two doomed lovers and the evil that thwarts their romance. 

George Balanchine preferred The Sleeping Beauty to Swan Lake, the first of Tschaikovsky’s three full-length ballets, so when asked by Morton Baum of the City Center of Music and Drama, both Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein hesitated at staging Swan Lake for New York City Ballet, and finally did so only as insurance that they would be allowed to mount a more daring piece in the future. Balanchine’s one-act version, which premiered at City Center in 1951 with Maria Tallchief and André Eglevsky in the leading roles, is based on Lev Ivanov’s choreography for Act II, and uses music from both Acts II and IV, the lakeside acts. Balanchine often praised the almost-forgotten genius of Ivanov, whose musicality served as an inspiration for the young choreographer.

NYCB’s first production of Swan Lake was designed by Cecil Beaton, who created calligraphic scenery and costumes, white ink on black grounds, following pen and ink drawings by 16th century German painters. In 1964, with NYCB’s move to Lincoln Center, Rouben Ter-Arutunian created a new set for the larger stage, which replaced Beaton’s designs with a painted landscape. In 1986 the production was redesigned once more by Alain Vaes who created an icy landscape instead of the traditional Gothic lakeside, and dressed the corps of swans in black, which Balanchine may have been planning in 1981 when he mysteriously ordered 400 yards of black tarlatan. When asked to justify this odd request, Balanchine merely said, “There are black swans as well.”

Like the ever-changing Wassily Kandinsky watercolors that set the stage, Pictures at an Exhibition’s ten dancers move in varying combinations to display a plethora of emotion, from raw and wild to solemn and soulful.

Created for New York City Ballet during the fall of 2014, Pictures at an Exhibition was Alexei Ratmansky’s fourth work for the Company. Using Modest Mussorgsky’s famed piano score, Pictures at an Exhibition, the ballet includes lighting design by Mark Stanley and projections of Wassily Kandinsky’s Color Study Squares with Concentric Circles, designed by Wendall K. Harrington. The 10 dancers are costumed in designs by fashion designer Adeline Andre, a frequent collaborator of Ratmansky’s.

In his 1874 work "Pictures at an Exhibition", Modest Mussorgsky, the most radical representative of the group known as "The Five", expressed an overflowing fullness of life and visionary sound images. 

Writing in The New York Times after the ballet’s premiere, critic Alastair Macaulay stated, “‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ is surely the most casually diverse work Mr. Ratmansky has created, but it gathers unstoppable momentum. The 10 dancers—five women, five men—started out in informal home-theater mood, almost as if they were playing charades. Some dances, including the first solo (by Sara Mearns), had a wild, improvisatory, part-stumbling, part-inspired quality. (The tailor-made nature of the ballet’s solos reflects one of Mr. Ratmansky’s greatest gifts: Dancers are vividly, individually, intimately revealed.) In certain numbers the dancers—here on all fours, there gesturing—seemed to enact or refer to private stories. Other sections shifted toward a classicism of long lines and academic steps. Some ensembles were largely about camaraderie; others about geometry, harmony, meter.”

History
Premiere of this production: 04 March 1877, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow

Swan Lake is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular of all ballets. Swan Lake is the ballet which embodies the soul of Russian art. The combination of brilliant music and choreography creates a special kind of magic; what the great 20th century choreographer George Balanchine had in mind when he famously said, “One should call every ballet Swan Lake because then people would come.”

Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of ten pieces (plus a recurring, varied Promenade) composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874.

Synopsis

Swan Lake is generally presented in either four acts, four scenes (primarily outside Russia and Eastern Europe) or three acts, four scenes (primarily in Russia and Eastern Europe). The biggest difference of productions all over the world is that the ending, originally tragic, is now sometimes altered to a happy ending.

Prologue
Some productions include a prologue that shows how Odette first meets Rothbart, who turns Odette into a swan.

Act 1

A magnificent park before a palace

[Scène: Allegro giusto] Prince Siegfried is celebrating his birthday with his tutor, friends and peasants [Waltz]. The revelries are interrupted by Siegfried's mother, the Queen [Scène: Allegro moderato], who is concerned about her son's carefree lifestyle. She tells him that he must choose a bride at the royal ball the following evening (some productions include the presentation of some possible candidates). Siegfried is upset that he cannot marry for love. His friend Benno and the tutor try to lift his troubled mood. As evening falls [Sujet], Benno sees a flock of swans flying overhead and suggests they go on a hunt [Finale I]. Siegfried and his friends take their crossbows and set off in pursuit of the swans.

Act 2

A lakeside clearing in a forest by the ruins of a chapel. A moonlit night.

The "Valse des cygnes" from act 2 of the Ivanov/Petipa edition of Swan Lake
Siegfried has become separated from his friends. He arrives at the lakeside clearing, just as a flock of swans land [Scène. Moderato]. He aims his crossbow [Scène. Allegro moderato], but freezes when one of them transforms into a beautiful maiden, Odette [Scène. Moderato]. At first, she is terrified of Siegfried. When he promises not to harm her, she explains she and her companions are victims of a spell cast by the evil owl-like sorcerer Rothbart. By day they are turned into swans and only at night, by the side of the enchanted lake – created from the tears of Odette's mother – do they return to human form. The spell can only be broken if one who has never loved before swears to love Odette forever. Rothbart suddenly appears [Scène. Allegro vivo]. Siegfried threatens to kill him but Odette intercedes – if Rothbart dies before the spell is broken, it can never be undone.

As Rothbart disappears, the swan maidens fill the clearing [Scène: Allegro, Moderato assai quasi andante]. Siegfried breaks his crossbow, and sets about winning Odette's trust as the two fall in love. But as dawn arrives, the evil spell draws Odette and her companions back to the lake and they are turned into swans again.

Act 3

An opulent hall in the palace

Guests arrive at the palace for a costume ball. Six princesses are presented to the prince [Entrance of the Guests and Waltz], as candidates for marriage. Rothbart arrives in disguise [Scène: Allegro, Allegro giusto] with his daughter, Odile, who is transformed to look like Odette. Though the princesses try to attract the prince with their dances [Pas de six], Siegfried has eyes only for Odile. [Scène: Allegro, Tempo di valse, Allegro vivo] Odette appears (usually at the castle window) and attempts to warn Siegfried, but he does not see her. He then proclaims to the court that he will marry "Odette" (Odile) before Rothbart shows him a magical vision of Odette. Grief-stricken and realizing his mistake, Siegfried hurries back to the lake.

Act 4

By the lakeside

Odette is distraught. The swan-maidens try to comfort her. Siegfried returns to the lake and makes a passionate apology. She forgives him, but his betrayal cannot be undone. Rather than remain a swan forever, Odette chooses to die. Siegfried chooses to die with her and they leap into the lake. This breaks Rothbart's spell over the swan maidens, causing him to lose his power over them and he dies. In an apotheosis, the swan maidens watch as Siegfried and Odette ascend into the Heavens together, forever united in love.

Venue Info

New York City Ballet (David H. Koch Theater) - New York
Location   20 Lincoln Center Plaza

The David H. Koch Theater is the major theater for ballet, modern, and other forms of dance, part of the Lincoln Center, at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Originally named the New York State Theater, the venue has been home to the New York City Ballet since its opening in 1964, the secondary venue for the American Ballet Theatre in the fall, and served as home to the New York City Opera from 1964 to 2011.

The New York State Theater was built with funds from the State of New York as part of New York State's cultural participation in the 1964–1965 World's Fair. The theater was designed by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee, and opened on April 23, 1964. After the Fair, the State transferred ownership of the theater to the City of New York.

Along with the opera and ballet companies, another early tenant of the theater was the now defunct Music Theater of Lincoln Center whose president was composer Richard Rodgers. In the mid-1960s, the company produced fully staged revivals of classic Broadway musicals. These included The King and I; Carousel (with original star, John Raitt); Annie Get Your Gun (revised in 1966 by Irving Berlin for its original star, Ethel Merman); Show Boat; and South Pacific.

The theater seats 2,586 and features broad seating on the orchestra level, four main “Rings” (balconies), and a small Fifth Ring, faced with jewel-like lights and a large spherical chandelier in the center of the gold latticed ceiling.

The lobby areas of the theater feature many works of modern art, including pieces by Jasper Johns, Lee Bontecou, and Reuben Nakian.

Important Info
Type: Ballet
City: New York, USA
Starts at: 20:00
Duration: 36min
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