Performance Dates
VIRTUOSITY, EXUBERANCE, & ROMANTICISM
Balanchine’s multifaceted talent is showcased in a program uniting three classic works. Concerto Barocco, from 1941, is set to Bach’s Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins, and features crystalline choreography for the two lead ballerinas, each representing the voice of one violin, as well as a male dancer and a small corps de ballet. For Allegro Brillante Balanchine returned to a favorite composer, Tschaikovsky, to create a scintillating dance that combines lyricism and buoyancy. Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet features a cast of more than 50 dancers in a ballet that, in four distinct movements, pays homage to the Romantic era as epitomized by Brahms’s music, filtered through the distinct modernist style of Arnold Schoenberg.
Ballets on this Program
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Concerto Barocco
One of Balanchine’s greatest masterpieces, Concerto Barocco is music made visible as two elegant yet dynamic lead ballerinas each depict one of the instrumental soloists in a virtuosic double violin concerto.
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Allegro Brillante
George Balanchine called the exuberant Allegro Brillante "everything I know about classical ballet in thirteen minutes."
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Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet
A sweeping romantic work for 55 dancers, the Austro-Hungarian-inflected Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet ends in an intoxicating finale.
