On "THEATRE": American Ballet Theatre

Bluebeard
Choreography by Michel Fokine
Music by Jacques Offenbach
Ballet Theatre World Premiere: October 27, 1941
Fokine’s first new creation for Ballet Theatre was the comedy Bluebeard, and the ballet proved to be a critical and popular success. The work was still in the repertory when the Company visited the Soviet Union in 1960, where the Premier Khrushchev declared it to be his favorite of the evening’s program.

Pictured: Kenneth Davis and Dimitri Romanoff

Petrouchka
Choreography by Michel Fokine
Music by Igor Stravinsky
Ballet Theatre Premiere: August 27, 1942
At a carnival in 1830 St. Petersburg, merry crowds gather in Admiralty Square as a Charlatan brings to life his three dancing puppets, imbued with the human sentiments that lead to love and jealousy. Considered one of the great ballets of all time, its fusion of choreography, music and theme — the tragedy of the human spirit — unite to form the foundation of its universal appeal.

Pictured: Andre Eglevsky, Lucia Chase and Leonide Massine

Billy the Kid
Choreography by Eugene Loring
Music by Aaron Copland
Ballet Theatre Premiere: December 8, 1940
In eleven episodes, the ballet depicts the pioneering of the West as illustrated by incidents in the life of Billy the Kid, the infamous outlaw who was born William Bonney in New York City at the close of the Civil War.

Pictured: Ruth Ann Koesun and John Kriza

Billy the Kid

Billy the Kid

Dark Elegies
Choreography by Antony Tudor
Music by Gustav Mahler
Ballet Theatre Premiere: January 24, 1940
Referred to as a "symphonic ballet," Dark Elegies joins the movements of the dancers closely with the text of five songs on the death of children from Mahler's song cycle, Kindertotenlieder. The text, written by Friedrich Rückert, expresses the raw emotion of a tight–knit community faced with the inexplicable loss of their beloved children.

Pictured: Lucia Chase, Hugh Laing, Antony Tudor and Hubert Bland

Dark Elegies


Pictured: Zachary Solov, Lucia Chase and John Kriza

Gala Performance
Choreography by Antony Tudor
Music by Sergei Prokofiev
Ballet Theatre Premiere: February 11, 1941
Three world-famous ballerinas of Russian, Italian and French descent appear together on stage for the very first time in their careers at a Gala Performance, and each tries to outshine the others. Tongue-in-cheek, Tudor pokes good-natured fun at the ballerinas’ relationships with the backstage personnel, their partners and their audience.

Pictured: Antony Tudor, Nora Kaye, Alicia Alonso, Norma Vance and Hugh Laing

Romeo and Juliet
Choreography by Antony Tudor
Music by Frederick Delius
Ballet Theatre World Premiere: April 6, 1943
Tudor's interpretation of the ill-fated love story by William Shakespeare remains the only ballet version of Romeo and Juliet presented in one act. Interestingly, Tudor could not finish this forty-five minute ballet by the date of its premiere; a finished version was presented four days later.

Pictured: Hugh Laing, Antony Tudor, Dimitri Romanoff, Lucia Chase and Alicia Markova

Romeo and Juliet

Pictured: Antony Tudor,
Nicholas Orloff and Hugh Laing

Romeo and Juliet

Pictured: Hugh Laing and
Alicia Markova

Undertow
Choreography by Antony Tudor
Music by William Schuman
Ballet Theatre World Premiere: April 10, 1945
Murder and sex, the ballet's themes, were common currency in the psychological dance-drama of the 1940's, and Tudor was king of the genre. This ballet of “psychological murder” was a striking example of ballet’s ability to animate highly erotic themes.

Pictured: Diana Adams and Hugh Laing

Facsimile
Choreography by Jerome Robbins
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Ballet Theatre World Premiere: October 24, 1946
After the success of Fancy Free, Robbins collaborated with Bernstein on a second work, Facsimile. Robbins explores the observation by the medical researcher Santiago Ramón y Cajol: “Small inward treasure does he possess who, to feel alive, needs every hour the tumult of the street, the emotion of the theater and the small talk of society.”

Pictured: John Kriza, Nora Kaye and Jerome Robbins

Fall River Legend
Choreography by Agnes de Mille
Music by Morton Gould
Ballet Theatre World Premiere: April 22, 1948
Based on the famous Lizzie Borden case - the unsolved murders of her father and stepmother - Fall River Legend explores the passions that lead to a violent resolution of oppression and turmoil.

Pictured: Lucia Chase and Alicia Alonso

Fall River Legend

Pictured: Nora Kaye and
James Mitchell

Le Jeune Homme et la Morte
Choreography by Roland Petit
Music by J.S. Bach
Ballet Theatre Premiere: April 9, 1951
With a one-act libretto by Jean Cocteau, the ballet depicts a tormented young painter cruelly rejected by a girl with whom he has an infatuation and which leads to his demise at his own hand. The dancer Jean Babilée, who had fought with the French Underground during the German occupation of Paris, was the image of reckless abandon when he seized the title role in the Ballet Theatre premiere of the work.

Pictured: Jean Babilée

The Combat
Choreography by William Dollar
Music by Raffaello de Banfield
Ballet Theatre Premiere: July 23, 1953
The Combat is inspired by Tasso’s poem, “Jerusalem Delivered,” and conveys a tale of mortal combat between a Christian knight and a masked assailant, who is revealed to be his lover, a Saracen maiden.

Pictured: Lupe Serrano

Journey
Choreography by Kenneth MacMillan
Music by Béla Bartók
Ballet Theatre World Premiere: May 6, 1957
Inspired by a series of paintings by Edvard Munch depicting the poem “Death and the Maiden,” MacMillan created Journey with four movements entitled “Premonitions,” “Three Messengers of Death,” “Journey,” and “Judgement,” which represent the passage towards death, from the first premonition to the final judgment.

Pictured: Nora Kaye

Journey

Pictured: Scott Douglas,
Royes Fernandez, John Kriza
and Nora Kaye

Winter's Eve
Choreography by Kenneth MacMillan
Music by Benjamin Britten
Ballet Theatre World Premiere: January 16, 1957
MacMillan tells the tragic story of a young man who meets a girl, not knowing that she is blind. When her secret is revealed, she leaves in distress, but the young man follows, they struggle and he becomes blinded. She teaches him to walk in the darkness until they are separated by the crowd, unable to find each other.

Pictured: Nora Kaye and John Kriza

Miss Julie
Choreography by Birgit Cullberg
Music by Ture Rangstrom
ABT Premiere: September 18, 1958
Based on the play by August Strindberg, Miss Julie portrays the victimization caused by tradition and honor. Miss Julie, the daughter of a Swedish count, rejects the man her father wants her to marry, and instead falls in love with Jean, the butler. In seducing her, he is driven by the urge to avenge himself for the injustices he has suffered from the aristocratic class and drives her towards destruction.

Pictured: Toni Lander and Glen Tetley

Offenbach in the Underworld (Le Bar du Can Can)
Choreography by Antony Tudor
Music by Jacques Offenbach
ABT Premiere: April 18, 1956
The action takes place in a fashionable café in the 1870’s where people come to enjoy themselves, including a famous operetta star, a grand duke, a veiled debutante and a penniless painter. There is no set story, for the flirtations that occur at such a place and time are most often half-forgotten by the next morning. There is not an ending but only a closing time.

Rodeo
Choreography by Agnes de Mille
Music by Aaron Copland
Ballet Theatre Premiere: August 14, 1950
Rodeo tells the Southwestern love story of a cowgirl who tries unsuccessfully to attract a man by imitating the boys’ actions and dress with de Mille’s uniquely blended choreography incorporating square dancing, tap, modern dance and elements of horseback riding and cattle roping.

Pictured: Christine Sarry

Rodeo

Pictured: Jenny Workman and
Ruth Ann Koesun

Rodeo

Pictured: Terry Orr and
Christine Sarry

Rib of Eve
Choreography by Agnes de Mille
Music by Morton Gould
Ballet Theatre World Premiere: April 25, 1956
Agnes de Mille abandoned the common folk to stage what she described as a "morality play" in which sophisticated intelligentsia reveal their shallowness at a cocktail party.

Pictured: Nora Kaye

A Streetcar Named Desire
Choreography by Valerie Bettis
Music by Alex North
Ballet Theatre Premiere: October 26, 1954
Described by Time as a “steamy ballet…gripping and disturbing” and based on the famed Tennesse Williams play, Bettis’ choreography blends classic ballet, modern dance and jazz to create a provocative visualization of the lead character’s twisted fantasy.

Pictured: John Kriza and Nora Kaye

Coppélia
Choreography by Enrique Martinez
Music by Léo Delibes
ABT Premiere: December 24, 1968
When Swanilda, the town beauty, becomes concerned that her love, Franz, has affections for another woman, she watches him admiring the toymaker’s “daughter.” Swanilda discovers her to be a lifelike doll and trades places with her, and the comedic events that follow lead to a happy ending for all.

Pictured: Victor Barbee, Karen Christensen and Danilo Radojevic

Coppélia

Pictured: Michael Smuin and
Cynthia Gregory

Echoing of Trumpets
Choreography by Antony Tudor
Music by Bohuslav Martinu
ABT Premiere: November 15, 1967
This ballet was created to the memory of the Czechoslovakian village of Lidice, which was destroyed in 1942 by Nazis who brutally attacked the inhabitants of a defenseless village; however, Tudor felt it could be any place and any time during a war. As he associated trumpets with victory, he sought to answer the question, “What happens after the echoing of trumpets, after the conquering hordes have conquered?”