The American Ballet Theater at the Met

Last week The American Ballet Theater announced casting for the first two weeks of its summer program at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
The Opening Gala on May 22 will showcase 9 dances: ballets (Other Dances, Shadow Song (world premier), Le Corsaire Suite, Apollo, Chaconne) and excerpts from full-length ballets (Giselle, Manon, Swan Lake and Sylvia). In my opinion, Chaconne is of particular interest in this program. Choreographed by George Balanchine and set to music of great Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, this ballet is a company premier.

Chaconne was created by Mr. B for the New York City Ballet (Suzanne Farrell was the original ballerina and her name is still associated with this work.) Balanchine was fascinated by the elegiac music of Gluck’s 1762 opera Orpheus and Eurydice. In this ballet he used musical excerpts composed for dances featured in interludes of the opera. In Chaconne “Balanchine’s choreography is at its most signature neoclassicism, a unique, synthesized, yet autonomous vocabulary.”

Starting May 23, the ABT presents 4 performances of Le Corsaire staged by Anna-Marie Holmes, after Marius Petipa and Konstantin Sergeyev. I would recommend the evening of May 25, when a “bravo boy” of the company Marcelo Gomes will dance the leading part of Conrad with enchanting Julie Kent (Medora).

Evening of May 26 will open All-Star Stravinsky Program. The ABT is giving 8 performances of three ballets set to Stravinsky’s music: Apollo, Jeu de Cartes, and Petroushka. John Cranko’s Jeu de Cartes, staged by Jane Bourne and featuring scenery and costumes by Dorothee Zippel will be also a New York company premier.



Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes will lead Company Premiere of James Kudelka’s Cinderella on Friday evening, June 2. Composed by Russian Sergey Prokofiev, this ballet is about... Well, in short, it’s a Cinderella story.

The second part of the ABT program in New York from June 12 to July 15 will feature the classics of ballet repertoir: Giselle, Manon, Swan Lake, Sylvia, and Romeo and Juliet.