Balanchine’s first work for the New York City Ballet, which for two seasons served as resident ballet company for the New York City Opera.

Rosa Ponselle, who sang Carmen, was partnered by Lew Christensen in choreography that was not by Balanchine.

As with his opera choreography for Diaghilev, because of such variables as new scenery and different numbers of people, while he was ballet master for the Blum-de Basil company [later Les Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo] in 1932, Balanchine rechoreographed all the operas carried over from earlier seasons as well as the operas receiving their premieres.

Diaghilev’s dancers were employed between ballet seasons as the resident company of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, and his first assignments to Balanchine were opera divertissements. Balanchine has said that all choreography for operas in Monte Carlo during his tenure with Diaghilev was newly created by him; programs occasionally include no credits for choreography, and it may be that some dances by Nijinska, resident choreographer with Diaghilev at Monte Carlo in 1923 and 1924, remained during Balanchine’s early years. When choreography credits appear in the opera programs between 1925 and 1929, they are variously given as ‘Maître de ballet: Georges Balanchine,’ ‘Chorégraphie de Georges Balanchine,’ or ‘Ballet reglé par Georges Balanchine’; the significance of these differences is unknown.