Another List

Andrew and I attended seven ballet performances over the last year. We caught performances in Boston, Dallas, New York and Washington.

Six of the seven performances involved evening-length ballets, an unusually high number for us. Only one performance was a mixed bill.

In order, the performances we attended since my July 2009 update were:

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Boston Ballet
Boston Opera House
Boston

Giselle [Adolphe Adam/Jean Coralli-Jules Perrot-Marius Petipa]

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Texas Ballet Theater
Winspear Opera House
Dallas

The Nutcracker [Peter Illich Tchaikovsky/Ben Stevenson]

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New York City Ballet
New York State Theater
New York

Romeo And Juliet [Sergei Prokofiev/Peter Martins]

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Mariinsky Ballet
Kennedy Center Opera House
Washington

The Sleeping Beauty [Peter Illich Tchaikovsky/Marius Petipa-Konstantine Sergeyev-Fedor Lopukhov]

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Bolshoi Ballet
Kennedy Center Opera House
Washington

Spartacus [Aram Khachaturian/Yuri Grigorovich]

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Boston Ballet
Boston Opera House
Boston

Coppelia [Leo Delibes/Marius Petipa-George Balanchine-Aexandra Danilova]

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Boston Ballet
Boston Opera House
Boston

The Four Temperaments [Paul Hindemith/George Balanchine]
Apollo [Igor Stravinsky/George Balanchine]
Theme And Variations [Peter Illich Tchaikovsky/George Balanchine]

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The Russian companies were a real eye-opener for me. The dancing of the Mariinsky was exceedingly refined, while the dancing of the Bolshoi was nakedly extrovert, even showy.

The Boston “Giselle” was our second “Giselle”, we previously having seen “Giselle” danced in Minneapolis by The State Ballet Of Georgia (Tbilisi).

The Boston “Four Temperaments” was our third “Temperaments”, we previously having seen “Temperaments” danced by New York City Ballet and San Francisco Ballet.

I am now beginning to appreciate “The Four Temperaments”, one of the 20th Century’s great masterpieces. The first two times I saw the ballet, I found the work dry and academic. Additional exposure is causing me to change my mind: “The Four Temperaments”, more than any other Balanchine work, may exemplify 20th-Century Classicism at its richest and most elevated.