Ives, Songs

Music

Charles Ives

Choreography

Jerome Robbins

When Jerome Robbins choreographed Ives, Songs in 1988, he was in a period of retrospection, and he considered the ballet a “farewell piece” of sorts. The music of Charles Ives has a complicated emotional depth that appealed to Robbins, who fell in love with the composer’s remarkably diverse songs, which create a range of moods, from joy to nostalgia to dreaminess to despair. The ballet includes a solitary male character, who could be a stand-in for the composer observing the world he has created, or an outsider watching the goings-on in a small American town, or a man looking back over the important scenes of his life.

41 minutes

Credits

Music

"The Children's Hour", "Memories, Part A: Very Pleasant", "Waltz", "The Cage", "The See'r", "Two Little Flowers", "At the River", "Serenity", "He Is There!", "Elegie", "Tom Sails Away", "White Gulls", "Songs My Mother Taught Me", "There is a Lane", "In Summer Fields", "The Incantation", "Autumn", "Like a Sick Eagle", "Elégie"

Premiere

February 4, 1988, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater

Original Cast

Heléne Alexopoulos, Stephanie Saland, Alexandre Proia, Jeppe Mydtskov, Laurence Matthews, Stacy Caddell, Katrina Killian, Margaret Tracey, Lauren Hauser, Melinda Roy, Lisa Jackson, Michael Byars, Tom Gold, Robert Lyon, Damian Woetzel, Philip Neal, Jeffrey Edwards, Florence Fitzgerald, Otto Neubert

Costumes

Florence Klotz

Set

David Mitchell

Lighting

Jennifer Tipton

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