The premiere of this ballet intended for the Stravinsky Centennial Celebration took place two weeks after its official close. Balanchine had first choreographed a solo for Suzanne Farrell to this music as the final section of his 1966 work for the New York City Ballet [353], in which the music was played three times. The 1982 ballet was entirely rechoreographed. This was Balanchine’s final work.

Included in the Tchaikovsky Festival. Sixteen couples dance, each couple holding aloft a garland of flowers in the form of an arch; a chain of little girls enters, weaving under the garlands, and is joined by nine older girls. In addition to the GARLAND DANCE, the short works presented under the general title Tempo di Valse during the Tchaikovsky Festival (and later in the season) were the WALTZ OF THE FLOWERS from The Nutcracker [302] by Balanchine, VALSE-SCHERZO by d’Amboise, and VARIATION VI FROM TRIO IN A MINOR and WALTZ FROM EUGENE ONEGIN, ACT II by Taras. (See FESTIVALS DIRECTED BY BALANCHINE.)

The first movement of the symphony was omitted; the second, ALLEGRO CON GRAZIA, was choreographed by Robbins; the third, ALLEGRO MOLTO VIVACE, was played by the orchestra with curtain lowered. The fourth and final movement was Balanchine’s ADAGIO LAMENTOSO: Women mourners danced in grief; angels with tall white wings and hooded figures in purple were followed by a procession of monks who prostrated themselves to form a living cross; a child entered carrying a candle. To the final chords, the child extinguished the candle. The ADAGIO LAMENTOSO closed the Tchaikovsky Festival of the New York City Ballet. (See FESTIVALS DIRECTED BY BALANCHINE.)

Included in the Stravinsky Centennial Celebration. Balanchine first choreographed Stravinsky’s Élégie as a pas de deux in 1948, and then as a solo in 1966. At the opening and closing of this newly choreographed work the dancer kneels in a circle of light on the darkened stage. (See FESTIVALS DIRECTED BY BALANCHINE.)

Presented by Balanchine on the one-hundredth anniversary of the composer’s birth as the last ballet of the Stravinsky Centennial Celebration, forty-nine years after its first production, which Stravinsky had hoped Balanchine would choreograph. Perséphone was originally presented by Ballets Ida Rubinstein in 1934, choreographed by Kurt Jooss and narrated by Ida Rubinstein. In the Balanchine staging, the costumed chorus was grouped on both sides of the stage, framing the action. Perséphone, abducted by Pluto, dwells in the underworld during Autumn and Winter, but is restored to earth each year to bless mankind in Spring and Summer. Gide’s text ends: No spring can ever live again Unless the seed beneath the ground Consents to die, and wakens then To make the future’s field abound. (See FESTIVALS DIRECTED BY BALANCHINE.)

Originally presented by the New York City Opera, 1979. The 1980 production used the same sets and costumes, with the choreography for Cléonte substantially revised.

Performed with Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas.

The music (celebrated in Proust) is in one movement with three underlying sections; the ballet is a series of pas de deux and solos for a ballerina and her cavalier, accompanied from time to time by the corps of women.

Four couples perform the eighteen Dances of the League of David, choreographed to piano music Schumann wrote for Clara Wieck, who later became his wife. The original bylines expressing Schumann’s multiple selves were expunged by him from later editions of the score; however, the dances appear to suggest facets of Schumann and Clara’s personalities.