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Variety Show

"Scotch Symphony" "Belles-Lettres", "Glass Pieces"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
April 26, 2025, Evening

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2025 by Mary Cargill

This program featured three ballets by three choreographers created in three decades each separated by about thirty years; this variety made for a very lively and interesting evening.  Balanchine’s “Scotch Symphony” (1952) is an oblique take on Bournonville’s nineteenth-century Romantic work set to Mendelssohn, Justin Peck’s “Belles-Lettres” (2014) is a neo-romantic swoon set to César Frank, and Jerome Robbins’ 1983 “Glass Pieces” is a hypnotic visualization of Philip Glass’s music.  

New York City Ballet dancers in "Glass Pieces" photo © Paul Kolnik

Pearls, White and Pink

"Apollo", "Ballo della Regina", "Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux", "Chaconne"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
April 25, 2025

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2025 by Mary Cargill

The trend of City Ballet’s marketing department naming programs with poetically descriptive titles seems to have slightly run out of steam, and this program was named somewhat prosaically All Balanchine I.  There were, though, hints of a theme, as the pearl in the original “Ballo della Regina” could be seen echoed in the luminous white of “Apollo” and in the iridescent costumes of the other three works.  And much of the dancing had a pearly glow, though one other recent innovation, the “see the music” lectures before a ballet, did dim the gleam somewhat.  Verdi’s “Ballo della Regina” music is accessible, bouncy, and melodic, and did not need extended explication that ran longer than the actual ballet; the somewhat restive audience wanted to see the ballet and hear the music.

Megan Fairchild in "Ballo della Regina" photo © Erin Baiano

Swimming with the Muses

"Apollo", "Ballo della Regina", "Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux", "Chaconne"
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
Lincoln Center
New York, New York
April 23, 2025

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2025 by Mary Cargill

It may have been a coincidence, but there were references to swimming in three of the ballets on view in the glorious all-Balanchine program )“Apollo”, “Ballo della Regina”, and “Chaconne”), and three of the ballets have indelible echoes of their originators— Merrill Ashley in “Ballo” Violette Verdy in “Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux”, and Suzanne Farrell in “Chaconne”.  But ballets of course, are not frozen in time, and each dancers must find her own way through these gems; the dancers in this program (Tiler Peck in “Ballo”, Indiana Woodward in Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux”, and, in a strong return from injury, Isabella LaFreniere in “Chaconne”) glowed.

New York City Ballet dancers in "Chaconne" photo © Erin Baiano