All Balanchine

TRAVERSE THREE NEOCLASSICAL OFFERINGS INSPIRED BY EMINENT COMPOSERS

Concerto Barocco, first presented in 1941, was among the three works danced at the first performance ever given by the newly established New York City Ballet in 1948. Its formal beauty and responsiveness to the score has made it an undisputed classic of the international repertory. Kammermusik No. 2 finds  Balanchine meeting the challenges of the Hindemith score with lively choreography for two principal couples and, unusually, an all-male corps de ballet. Raymonda Variations features dances of “indescribable happiness” and “simple deftness,” as one critic wrote, and includes subtle nods to the  choreography of the Marius Petipa story ballet of the title, although it is a plotless work.