In G Major

With the playful jazz accents of Ravel’s Concerto in G and fashionable scenery and costumes by Erté, this lighthearted ballet suggests a chic Riviera setting.

Ravel, at the peak of his fame and popularity, had just returned from a triumphant tour of the United States when he began his Piano Concerto in G Major (1928-1931). He wrote that the work was “a concerto in the strict sense, written in very much the same spirit as those of Mozart and Saint-Saëns” and that “it uses certain effects borrowed from jazz, but only in moderation.” Jerome Robbins choreographed In G Major for NYCB’s Ravel Festival, in 1975. When the Paris Opera Ballet staged In G Major, under the name En Sol, it commissioned scenery and costumes by Erté, and it is those designs that are now used in the New York City Ballet production.

22 minutes