Programme booklet »Jewels«

jewels

Ewa Bathelier, Blue

The Vienna State Ballet is part of the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Volksoper

jewels emeralds / rubies / diamonds

Choreography George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust Music Gabriel Fauré, Igor Stravinsky & Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky Musical Direction Paul Connelly Stage Design Peter Harvey Light Design Mark Stanley Staging Nanette Glushak Diana White Pianist Rubies Anna Malikova Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera

WORLD PREMIERE 13 TH APRIL 1967, NEW YORK CITY BALLET – NEW YORK STATE THEATER PREMIERE WITH THE VIENNA STATE BALLET 2 ND NOVEMBER 2019, VIENNA STATE OPERA

about today’s performance

They are a cornerstone of every great classical ballet company: the iconic works of the master of neoclassicism George Balanchine (1904–1983), whose purism and extraordinary musicality make them seem timeless.

Of the 450 ballets that make up Balanchine’s oeuvre, 19 have so far been premiered at the Vienna State Opera – not including guest performances such as the pas de deux from Sylvia (1991) and Sonatine (1999). The first piece by the master choreographer to be shown at the House on the Ring was the pas de trois from Paquita in 1958. The complete Jewels only entered the Viennese repertoire much more recently, in 2019, though its central section – Rubies – had already been presented as part of a triple bill in 2010.

Now this brilliant work that displays almost the full spectrum of Balanchine’s creativity and his incomparable, yet multifaceted style celebrates its revival.

Three composers, three colours and three different shades of dance language are combined by the theme of precious stones, which are found in the costumes but also in many of the elaborate choreographic formations, and by the choreographer’s signature – is a concise summary of the three-part ballet evening Jewels, which is credited with being a “perfect introduction to ballet”.

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Human beings have been fascinated by precious stones since time immemorial, with coloured stones being used as jewellery and symbols for thousands of years before they were eventually targeted for mining and commercial use. They are an expression of luxury, but also of great beauty and elegance, and have repeatedly played a role in the ballet repertoire. And George Balanchine also had an early enthusiasm for precious stones.

For Jewels, which is regarded as the first plotless full-length ballet and received its world premiere in 1967 with the New York City Ballet, he was apparently inspired by the virtuosity of the jewellery designer Claude Arpels and explained: “Of course, I have always liked jewels, after all I am an Oriental from Georgia in the Caucasus. I like the colour of gems, the beauty of stones, and it was wonderful to see how our costume workshop under Karinska’s direction came so close to the quality of the real stones (which were of course too heavy for the dancers to wear!).” Above all the colouration for Barbara Karinska’s splendid costumes in emerald green, ruby red and white created a frame for the ballet, connecting its three virtually independent, disparate sections – Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds. Precious stone-like appliqués decorate the corsages of the ballerinas and the tops of the male dancers and can also be found in Peter Harvey’s stage design, which is hung with shimmering, reflective rhinestones and is intended to suggest a starry night sky – discreetly in Emeralds, in only an abstract, reduced design in Rubies and in elaborate formations suspended from above in Diamonds. Glittering tiaras also decorate the heads of the female dancers, whom Balanchine always placed at the centre of his works and allowed to shine, providing the basis for his legendary statement “ballet is woman”.

Each section of this work is unique in both its music and its atmosphere. Emeralds to music by Gabriel Fauré feels lyrical and dream-like, its dancing hovering and light-footed, and is reminiscent of the French romantic ballet of the 19th century. In Rubies the dancers sweep across the stage at pace to the jazzy sounds of Igor Stravinsky and seem to communicate the vitality and flair of New York. Lastly the virtuosic Diamonds to a composition by Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky are a homage to the great classic ballets of Marius Petipa in the Russia of the Tsars, evoking pure classicism and culminating in a pas de deux full of elegance and grace.

Even if Jewels is termed an “abstract” ballet, its sections radiate a rich spectrum of moods and emotions in which the dancers of the Vienna State Ballet can shine equally in the solo roles and in the ensemble that frames everything.

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ABOUT TODAY’S PERFORMANCE

Olga Esina, Masayu Kimoto & Ensemble (Diamonds)

Elena Bottaro (Emeralds)

Ketevan Papava (Rubies)

SUZANNE FARRELL

“Balanchine asked me if I had a preference about which jewel I wanted to be. I suggested the Stravinsky section, and he said, ‘I think I want you to be the diamond.’ On the first day, he didn’t know how to start the pas de deux, so we began in the center. Later he added the entrance. The pas de deux has a diamond-like prism effect, a lot of separating and coming back together. At one point we actually make a diamond shape. It’s so ingenious. There is no competition between the man and woman in the pas de deux; it’s just two people coming together and doing something that neither could do alone, and making it more exalted. It’s gloriously resolved, there is no tragedy.

It was the only tutu ballet that Balanchine ever made on me, and I loved the feeling of grandeur he created through the music. I particularly love the polonaise; there is nothing like Mr. B., Tchaikovsky and a polonaise!

I feel that what links the three ballets in Jewels is the bourrée. They are different in each piece – languid in Emeralds, prancing in Rubies, and more like stylized walks in Diamonds. No one ever applauds for a bourrée, but here they hold the ballet together.”

GEORGE BALANCHINE

“The whole thing was – I like jewels!”

spaces of memory filled with motion GUNHILD OBERZAUCHER-SCHÜLLER

On George Balanchine’s Jewels We should not be fooled by George Balanchine – he understated things his whole life long. He rarely commented on his ballets. Listening to opinions about his own works – and his around 450 choreographic pieces contain a considerable number of 20th century masterpieces among them – went against his nature as much as taking any notice of explanatory or even interpretative observations. If anyone tried – and well-informed and intelligent people frequently did – to place his works in a broader context to highlight his outstanding achievements, the American Russian with Georgian roots would immediately dismiss their praise. Yes, he used the classical vocabulary he had grown up with, namely that of Marius Petipa. But if he applied this vocabulary differently, in a new way, or even developed it further, this was not an attempt to innovate, but purely a response to the music he chose for his ballets, by Igor Stravinsky or Paul Hindemith or Anton Webern. What’s more, he did not ask for comments. However, as it became necessary to satisfy the demands of their constantly growing reception and the everyday work of the theatre, brief statements were eventually approved about individual works.

Of Jewels, for example, it was said that it was the “first non-narrative full-length ballet” and an “abstract ballet”. Regarding the music for the three sections of the ballet, we are told that creating Jewels in 1967 for the New York City Ballet, Balanchine allowed himself

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to rely entirely on the nature of the music of its various composers. Starting with Gabriel Fauré, Igor Stravinsky and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, he had turned to those musical regions that accompanied the most significant steps in his career – Russia, France and America. He also turned to three different stylistic versions of ballet; romantic, classical and contemporary.

Whether this opinion entirely corresponds with Balanchine’s motives for Jewels deserves some scrutiny. Because: focussing purely on the terms “non-narrative” and “abstract”, one must note that Balanchine’s works, even when they demonstrate no “plot”, always tell stories: about his dancers, about the composers to whom his choreographies are set and not least about himself, his sensitivities and his emotions. He confronts entirely different musical spaces and reacts to them with arrangements of movement. He chooses the style of his choreographic language and with it the movement spaces according to the different character of the music of the composers he has selected.

But famously there is an additional narrative connected with Jewels which deserves to be considered thoroughly: the real “jewels” that are part of the story of how the ballet was developed. One should say in advance that the work was produced at a time when Balanchine had already been working in the USA for over thirty years and the now worldfamous New York City Ballet, for which the choreographer had then been working for almost twenty years, had finally received a home of its own from the city and state of New York in the form of the New York State Theater (since 2008 it has been renamed the David H. Koch Theater). The time now seemed ripe to focus on luxuries – and these included jewels.

The Jewels of Mr Balanchine aka Mr. B. There have been numerous official statements about the jewels that give the work its title. We have been told, for example, that the violinist Nathan Milstein, who had known Balanchine for a long time, introduced the choreographer to the jeweller Claude Arpels.

The traditional Paris-based jewellery house Van Cleef & Arpels had opened a store on New York’s Fifth Avenue in 1942. The colourful jewels on display there – including emeralds, rubies and diamonds – had prompted Balanchine to embed each of the individual sections of a new ballet in one of these colours. This would happen primarily through the costumes of the already legendary Barbara Karinska. Balanchine devised the first section of Jewels around emeralds, with the colour green and the music of Fauré, the second section around rubies, with the colour red and music by Stravinsky, and the final section around diamonds, white and the music of Tchaikovsky. (It is claimed that Balanchine also contemplated a fourth section to be dedicated to sapphires and the colour blue.

For this the choreographer had apparently considered music by Arnold Schönberg.)

It has also been emphasised that the nature and colourful effect of jewels had already been featured in one of Balanchine’s works. In 1947, when the Opéra de Paris invited the 11

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choreographer to create a ballet for the house, he chose Georges Bizet’s Symphony in C major and called the lavishly designed work, whose four movements were allocated different colours, Palais de Cristal. However, when the ballet transferred to New York, what had been sufficient for Paris and the Opéra seemed less appropriate. When it was premiered there in 1948, not only were the costumes changed to a uniform white but the title was revised to Symphony in C, the name under which it has been danced around the world ever since (at the Vienna State Opera it was even presented under both titles, the original and the current one).

To these facts one should add that the world of precious stones occupies a regular place in the folk tales of such mineral-rich lands as Russia and Georgia – Balanchine’s homeland. That folk tales of this kind are soon turned into ballet libretti is hardly surprising. One famous example is The Tale of the Stone Flower (music: Sergei Prokofiev, choreography: Leonid Lavrovsky, Moscow 1954), a work in which “the most precious Russian stones” dance. However, for Balanchine, with his addiction to Tchaikovsky (according to Solomon Volkov in his book Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky, the choreographer used to conduct “conversations” with the composer at night) there might be another source of inspiration rather closer to home. I am thinking here of the ruby and emerald pages in Act Two of The Nutcracker and of the pas de quatre by the gold, silver, sapphire and diamond fairies in Act Three of Sleeping Beauty. All the more so because for Georgi Balantschiwadse – Balanchine’s original name – who joined the ballet ensemble of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg (then known as the Petrograd State Academic Theatre for Opera and Ballet), Sleeping Beauty was the first work in which he was cast, while still a pupil at the ballet school. Despite the decades that had passed, he was still able to recall both the music and choreography of the precious stones serving as allegorical figures in precise detail.

However interesting the information on offer may be, there is still no convincing explanation – despite Milstein’s actions as an intermediary – as to why Balanchine sought out the company of Van Cleef & Arpels for the specific jewels. The fact that the choreographer walked past this address on Fifth Avenue every day on his way to the New York State Theater is not truly satisfying because he would have already passed the Cartier and Tiffany stores on the other side of the street that also displayed jewels of the very highest quality. Balanchine might also have taken the opportunity to consider the house of Fabergé, closely associated with the court of the Tsars and the ballet ensemble to which he had once belonged.

The following answer to the question of why Balanchine specifically chose Van Cleef & Arpels is based on two reasons, both connected with artistic craftsmanship. Apart from the fact that the jewellers had been producing a series of ballerina-shaped jewellery brooches ever since the Forties, the house had also developed a process called “serti mystérieux”. This involves presenting precious stones in settings that are invisible, thereby lending the jewels a more attractive appearance. Secondly, the house had also devised techniques that enabled pieces of jewellery to be made adaptable. Part of a tiara might be detached from the whole to be used as a pendant or brooch while other parts might be rearranged to be worn as earrings. Both these processes match Balanchine’s

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qualities as an artist precisely. On the one hand, he presents his dancers in all their many facets in a manner that is technique-based and entirely self-effacing. On the other, in keeping with the music that he has chosen, he continually reshapes a mutable substance into new forms. Balanchine’s jewels are neither emeralds, rubies nor diamonds: they are his ensemble, the dancers at whose pinnacle (for him) stands the ballerina.

Emeralds – elegiac immersion in an indeterminate time If one turns to the choreographer’s own statements for guidance to Emeralds, the first section of the ballet, one immediately falls victim to Balanchine’s inclination to understatement. The choreographer states briefly and succinctly that the section to music by Fauré (from his suites of theatre music for Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Edmond Haraucourt’s Shylock) is performed by two leading couples, two female soloists and one male soloist, plus a group of ten female dancers. What is seen at the beginning is a pas de deux to “soft, melodious string sounds”, accompanied by the group.

This is followed by a solo from the female lead to a “gently sparkling” music. A solo by the second female lead is then followed by a pas de trois and then again by a pas de deux for the first couple, serene and performed as if for themselves, and another for the second couple. The finale brings all the performers together.

This information leaves the audience very much to its own devices: it knows nothing of the identity of those on stage nor about the time and place in which they find themselves. At first glance the performers appear – the ladies in green tutus below the knee, with their corsages studded with emeralds, the gentlemen in similarly green tops also encrusted with gems – to be wandering through their own memory or in a dream.

Their dancing evokes moods into which they themselves seem to have sunk, dreams of longing perhaps, whose return they can feel inside. No communication exists between them, nor do there appear to be any causal relationships except for the chain of female dancers in a line that is grouped around the couple or push between them. The couple itself, always in motion, never holding position, embodies – and here Balanchine does provide us with some information –“the France of elegance, comfort, dress and perfume”.

As if the couple wishes to relish every angle of its relationship, it moves throughout the space, while the measured tempo of swaying movements continues to pulsate.

Among the many readings of the first section of Jewels, there are several that are eminently plausible. Renowned names have seen the spirit of the fin de siècle evoked here, while others believe it to embody poems from Charles Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal. Most commentators, however, probably going by the length of the tutus, associate this section with romantic ballet per se, though one must point out here that this was a style of ballet dancing Balanchine did not know at all as Petipa had long since “updated” the ballets from this time, adapting them to the taste of the end of the 19th century. There are some signs of late romanticism: these can be found in the patterns 13

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of the group formations that are sometimes reminiscent of the silhouettes of flowers or polished gemstones and in the “open” structure of the principal pas de deux. Whatever Balanchine intended, it is left up to the audience – and here Balanchine’s lack of clarity proves to be extremely positive – to interpret what is happening on stage.

Rubies – red movement signals With the second section of Jewels, Rubies, a new space opens and the contrast to the previous section could not be greater. Again, the few statements that Balanchine himself made about the ballet’s central section are surprising. Many people, the choreographer says, have seen America in what he puts on stage, but this was never his intention. The forms and vocabulary of the steps are purely a response to the musical score, the Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, which the composer (Stravinsky) had already written in France and given its world premiere in Paris in 1929 with himself at the piano. The ballet, Balanchine explains in a few words, is conceived for a leading couple, one female soloist and a corps de ballet of female and male dancers. When asked “what Rubies was about?” he apparently delivered the forthright response: “It’s about twenty minutes.”

Balanchine did produce a surprise in the opening tableau of Rubies that is entirely in keeping with the composition’s startling opening sequence. The glowing red – again decorated with gems – in which the female and male dancers are dressed immediately leaps out at the audience. And the formation in which this tableau is displayed is also as surprising as it is ingenious. The dancers, linked by holding hands stand in a full enface position facing the audience, almost parallel to the front of the stage, and form the outline of a tiara pattern across the floor. This closed pattern quickly dissolves and the enormously dynamic sequence of soli, duos and group passages is, like the movement language, full of contrasts. Here Balanchine uses his highly complex classical language that relocates itself by slipping out of the body axis, which he found for Apollo (1928) and might be termed his “Stravinsky language”. Or he completely dissolves the classicism and in a brief episode allows the dancers to run in a sporty and almost athletic manner.

Rubies has also inspired numerous interpretations. These begin with the colour red itself, which is in no way associated purely with “beauty”, but also with the “Red Army”.

However, in the extremely strong movements of these entirely real seeming characters, the rapid changes in the sequence of dances and the effervescent mood, constant drive and high volume of the music, it is generally accepted that the setting is New York. And many commentators have believed that they could recognise a panorama of the city in the pattern of the opening tableau. Many consider the highlight of Rubies to be the passage in which Balanchine, most likely with ironic intentions, uses traditional forms such as the module “ballerina with numerous partners”. In the pas de deux the “normal” partner functions are driven to the extreme, at one point literally “inverted” and on another occasion extended in an exaggerated or grotesque manner. In the adagio the gentlemen seek further “points of attack” on their partner. They find these not only on her waist and her hands or arms but also on her feet and ankles. Others in turn claim

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that Balanchine fragmented his choreography through the facets of a ruby in a way that is both ingenious and polished in order to allow his dancers the opportunity to shine.

Diamonds – majestic magic For the concluding section of the ballet, Diamonds, in which the dancers appear in gleaming white adorned with gemstones, Balanchine himself offers no explanations. He confines himself to specifying the tempi indicated for the individual movements (two to five) of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 3 in D major.

The delicate circular groupings of the corps de ballet that were seen in Emeralds have now disappeared and the patterns that the group repeatedly fans out to depict are straight and thus fitting for the sharp edges of a diamond. Finally, it leaves the space to the couple. The two dancers enter far apart and approach each other in diagonals.

Despite the moderate tempo, as before in Emeralds, the two dancers remain in constant motion and only maintain position momentarily. Their encounter, coloured by Tchaikovsky’s elegiac tone, is overlaid with melancholy that at times takes on a cheery air. Small accelerations allow tension to be seen, but the ardour that is evident on the surface remains restrained. Sometimes one has the impression that the ballerina is pointing towards other worlds. A brilliant, choreographically broken polonaise brings Diamonds to an end.

The less Balanchine commented on the final section of Jewels, the more interpretations it produced. If old Russia, the empire of the Tsars and with it the great era of the ballet ensemble under Petipa had all been lost, here its essence was evoked and the glories of the age palpably captured. However, most commentators focussed on the role of the principal ballerina and the dancer who performed it: Suzanne Farrell. In an incomparable performance she embodied Balanchine’s view of the essence of a ballerina: an artificial figure, a species all her own to whom the man had to pay homage. In this section once again Balanchine’s artistic credo found its physical embodiment in inimitable form.

Jewels become “best friends” of the international repertoire Jewels not only became a box office magnet: it soon became recognised as one of Balanchine’s leading works. Even on a structural level, the choreographer had sought to create a strongly contrasting opposition of arrangements. The two outer movements, paradises of “motionless motion”, were, in keeping with their chosen composers, accentuated differently and therefore preserved in differing arrangements of the classical idiom. They were conceived in “radical purity” or as a “distillate” of these – symmetrical – arrangements. By contrast, the Stravinsky section with its “not quite genuine jazz” remains in almost hectic movement. Here the old arrangement is disturbed in nume 15

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rous ways by hips being thrown out, knees being pointed in and other bends. The link between the highly contrasting individual sections is a walking that, again in keeping with the music, has its own accentuation and tempo each time: the sleepwalking walk of the Fauré section, the accelerated walk, a run even, of the Stravinsky section and the majestic strolling of the Tchaikovsky section. Balanchine’s own artistic explorations ultimately led him to a new high point of his creative journey in the Stravinsky Festival of 1972, at which, in addition to a whole series of creations, a standalone performance of Rubies was one of the highlights.

The complete Jewels were performed around the world after Balanchine’s death in 1983. Of the many ballet ensembles who included it in their repertoires, I shall name only the Paris Opéra, the Mariinsky and Bolshoi Theatres and the Royal Ballet. Nevertheless, these made it possible to stage a remarkable production in New York to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jewels in 2017 in which French dancers danced Emeralds, Americans Rubies and Russians Diamonds.

A Pendant: Viennese gems with a Secession polish One does not need to dig very deep into Viennese ballet history to find dancing jewels: towards the end of Gustav Mahler’s era as Director of the Court Opera, the head of its design department, Alfred Roller, was the intellectual originator of a Rübezahl ballet that not only boasted emeralds, rubies and diamonds, but also moonstones, topazes, amethysts, opals, sapphires, turquoises, garnets and beryls. The one-act work was given its world premiere on 1 June 1907 (a few days after Mahler handed in his resignation request to the management).

From the point of view of the Court Opera ballet, the company had been forced to suffer for years from Mahler’s lack of interest. This institution, still highly acclaimed at the beginning of the 1890s, found that the Director of the Court Opera did not respond to highly promising proposals that would open new perspectives on ballet and repeatedly cancelled performances. As if he wished to correct his own approach shortly before his departure, Mahler emphatically supported his associate Roller’s project (the high budget for decor was approved on his recommendation). Roller, co-founder and temporarily President of the Secession, received special praise for his use of lighting – it was said that he allowed “the light to ebb and flow”. Carl Godlewski, who was regarded in the theatre as an advocate of new dance, was entrusted with the choreography, while the music was put together by the Ballet Director Julius Lehnert.

The ballabile of jewels that occupied the centre of the work used excerpts not previously seen at the Court Opera from Léo Delibes’ ballets Coppélia and Sylvia, and from Naila by Delibes and Ludwig Minkus, together with the waltz Petitions by Josef Strauss.

Even more than the appearance of the newly recruited, strictly classical prima ballerina Cäcilie Cerri as the Diamond, attention was aroused by the dancing of the opals, show-

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ing “only the beautiful flowing lines of their limbs”. This can be taken as an indication that modern dance impulses were capable of reaching even the Court Opera ballet.

The dance of the opals had been included for the sisters Grete and Elsa Wiesenthal, whom Roller had also particularly encouraged, however, shortly before the premiere they turned their back on their place of employment to pursue an independent career.

According to the critics, this did little to detract from the effect of the “opals”, which were now danced by their former colleagues. The work with the imprimatur “secessionist reform ballet” survived Roller’s first creative period at the House on the Ring by just a year. After 16 performances it disappeared from the repertoire in 1910.

“The idea for a new ballet using highly jeweled costumes was started in Europe over fifteen years ago when Mr. George Balanchine and Mr. Claude Arpels were introduced by violinist Nathan Milstein but it was not until early 1966, after a visit

by Mr. Balanchine to Van Cleef & Arpels’ Fifth Avenue Salons, that the idea of the ballet really began to grow. So impressed was Mr. Balanchine by the beauty of the jewels he saw there, that he decided to try to capture it forever. The jewel motif in the three ballets is carried through by Mme. Karinska’s costume designs with strong emphasis on jeweled decoration.”

LINCOLN KIRSTEIN

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preserving the integrity of music PAUL CONNELLY IN CONVERSATION WITH IRIS FREY

You trained as a pianist and made your conducting debut at the age of 24 with Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Houston Grand Opera. How and when did your path lead you to ballet?

One evening, in the late 1970s, I saw a performance of American Ballet Theatre (ABT) in San Francisco. The music director was John Lanchbery, and it was truly a ‘golden period’, with dancers such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalya Makarova, Fernando Bujones and Gelsey Kirkland. I don’t know how I had the nerve to do so, but I introduced myself to Lanchbery, and some weeks later, after hearing my recording of Porgy and Bess, he offered me a position as a conductor at ABT. On my first day, Lanchbery resigned from his position. So immediately I had to assume a much more active position and learn a lot of repertoire in a very short time. Baryshnikov, the artistic director of the ABT at that time, brought in a lot of different choreographers, including Merce Cunningham, Kenneth MacMillan, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, Anthony Tudor and George Balanchine, so I was really privileged to enter the company at such a creative moment. One day Peter Martins, Co-Director of the New York City Ballet (NYCB) with Robbins, came to ABT’s studios to coach Balanchine’s Apollo, and I played the piano for that rehearsal. At one point he said to me, “I never saw somebody pay so much attention to the dancers” and invited me to come as a guest to NYCB. PC

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Since you mentioned Balanchine, did you ever meet him in person?

Yes, I did! During that period ABT was performing his Apollo, but without the prologue (the birth of Apollo). The music began later in the score, forfeiting a fantastic introduction (it’s back now). So, I said to Baryshnikov that it would be really great if we would play it before the curtain goes up. He replied, “Well, Balanchine is coming over to our studios today, why don’t you ask him?”. And so, I did. We had a meeting, and although he rejected my suggestion I really didn’t care, because I had my five minutes with Balanchine! And although I didn’t have that much personal interaction with him beyond that, I conducted many of his ballets subsequently for both ABT and NYCB. PC

Balanchine’s works are undoubtedly highly musical.

I completely agree. His works have great integrity, a counterpoint to, but at the same time, a brilliant relationship with the composers he choreographed to, and a great respect for the intentions of those composers. That is, not distorting those intentions to serve the steps.

PC

You have worked with many renowned ballet companies. Since 1991, you have also regularly performed at the Vienna State Opera, where you conducted an international ballet gala featuring the current director of the Vienna State Ballet, Alessandra Ferri. How did that come about?

The connection was again ABT, where Elena Tchernichova was an important ballet mistress in the 1980s under Baryshnikov. In 1991, when she became director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet, she organized a ballet gala with many guest soloists from ABT, among others, and asked me to conduct it. Of course, I said yes! This marked the beginning of my long-standing work with this great institution.

PC

You have conducted numerous full-length ballets at the Vienna State Ballet, including 30 performances of Rudolph Nureyev’s The Nutcracker and 29 of Swan Lake. You also lead the premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s Callirhoe during the current season. Does it make a difference to you whether you conduct full-length ballets or triple bills, difficulty-wise?

I wouldn’t say it’s more difficult, it’s just different – like a feature film compared to three short ones. I can’t say I prefer one over the other, but they do have their own unique challenges.

PC

What about Jewels? The three pieces of music in it are quite different from each other: Fauré’s lyrical-romantic, Stravinsky’s neoclassicaljazzy, and Tchaikovsky’s classically elegant compositions. Is that a big challenge for you?

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Having conducted Jewels many times, including at its premiere with the Vienna State Ballet in 2019, I can say that basically the music speaks for itself, and it is really fun for everyone to be able to enjoy these three composers’ styles, and Balanchine’s treatment of them, within one evening. They’re all so very different. You have to change one’s mindset, as does the orchestra, in order to adapt, but it is a satisfying challenge! And here with the magnificent Vienna State Opera Orchestra supporting.

PC

Rubies features a challenging piano part, which will now be played for the first time at the Vienna State Opera by Anna Malikova. Have you worked together before?

It will be the first time we collaborate. I happened to discover her via an excellent recording that came on the radio a couple of summers ago.

I looked her up, saw that she had played previously with a conductor friend and colleague of mine, and he had only good things to say. So, I proposed that she plays Stravinsky’s Capriccio in Rubies in Vienna, and coincidentally, she also lives very nearby!

PC

What qualities does a pianist need to perform this piece, and what demands are placed on the conductor to coordinate the piano and orchestra?

This particular Stravinsky work combines American jazzy playfulness with a Russian-inflected, ironic seriousness drawn from Eastern European folk traditions, and the pianist needs to understand this as well as the orchestra.

As far as coordination goes, there is always a challenge of logistics in the pit, especially with three very diverse works and orchestrations as we have with this particular programme. The piano must be a full size one but cannot be moved to a ‘typical’ concerto position, so they are somewhat to the back of the pit. But we can still see each other, and all will be well, I am sure!

PC

What is the general challenge of conducting a ballet?

When I’m conducting for dance, it is obviously my responsibility to make the dancers look as good as possible. At the same time, I must do everything in my power to maintain the integrity of the music. Orchestrations are usually constructed by the composer with a certain framework of pacing in mind. It’s like a bridge. If you put too much weight on it, it will collapse. Too fast on that bridge and you may drive off of it! So, there is always the challenge of balance. To me we are absolutely a team – the dancers, the orchestra, and myself. And I am always so happy to bring my experience to the realisation of that.

PC

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GEORGE BALANCHINE

“Stravinsky understood ballet as well as Tchaikovsky did. (…) He understood that you can’t write boring music for ballet. Everything has to move smoothly and swiftly – tempo! Like an express train without stopping at unimportant stations.”

inspiring jewels Who can say why a source of inspiration will suddenly appear one day, how it will outlive its own history and belong to a house forever? This is what has happened with dance, an art form that the jewellery house Van Cleef & Arpels has cultivated and promoted from the very beginning. Van Cleef & Arpels’s relationship with ballet is deeply rooted in its history, its aesthetic and its understanding of movement. Since the Maison was founded by the marriage of Alfred Van Cleef and Estelle Arpels in 1906, its brand has stood not only for technical innovation and precious materials, but also for a poetic view of jewellery as something living – as an art form that unfolds in dialogue with the body. It is this idea that connects Van Cleef & Arpels in a very special way with ballet as an art form in which discipline and virtuosity exist in harmonic balance with fluency and powerful beauty.

Van Cleef & Arpels’s close affinity with dance was already evident in the early 1940s with its famous “ballerina clips”: brooches representing ballerinas in brilliant tutus, with their arms outstretched or frozen in the moment of a jump or an arabesque. These pieces of jewellery are not purely decorative miniatures, instead they capture the essence of classical ballet – elegance, tension, grace – in a single image. Precious stones and precious metals take on the role of material, light and movement. Rubies, sapphires and diamonds make dresses sway and bodies vibrate as if they will be in motion again at any moment.

This aesthetic affinity with dance reached a pinnacle in the links with George Balanchine and his ballet Jewels. A connection between the choreographer’s ideas and the jewellery house is particularly evident here. The precious stones in Jewels are not simply props, rather they are both an inspiration and provider of ideas: they represent moods, traditions and qualities of movement. In similar fashion Van Cleef & Arpels regards precious stones not only as valuable material, but also as conveying emotion, light and rhythm such as the dancers’ bodies in movement. Jewellery and dance meet on a symbolic level in which form and movement are inseparably interconnected.

INSPIRING JEWELS

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Pas de Trois-Clip by Van Cleef & Arpels – piece unique

Emerald As early as ancient Greek and Roman times, the emerald was regarded as a stone of equilibrium and moderation. A variety of the mineral beryl, its deep green distinguishes it from all other precious stones and lends it a special visual depth. The emerald sparkles less brilliantly and is much more a stone that constantly evokes a romantic harmony.

Ruby The ruby is one of the oldest and most richly symbolic precious stones in the history of culture. It represents an intense experience as its effect is created not through reticence but through an immediate presence. Energy, passion and rhythmic tension are united in its penetrating red along with movement, contrast and modern power.

Diamond For centuries the diamond has symbolised timelessness, purity and the highest precision. Unlike coloured precious stones, its effect is not defined by pigmentation, but more through structure, proportion and symmetry. The diamond represents a classical ideal of order, clarity and beauty.t.

INSPIRING JEWELS

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Always keeping an eye on the dancers’ jewellery during rehearsals: George Balanchine

Olga Esina (Emeralds)

Ioanna Avraam & Kentaro Mitsumori (Emeralds)

Gaia Fredianelli, Giorgio Fourés & Phoebe Liggins (Emeralds)

Margarita Fernandes & António Casalinho (Rubies)

Cassandra Trenary & Davide Dato (Rubies)

Milda Luckuté (Rubies)

Madison Young & Timoor Afshar (Diamonds)

Sinthia Liz & Victor Caixeta (Diamonds)

Laura Fernandez Gromova & Alessandro Frola (Diamonds)

biographies

GEORGE BALANCHINE – Choreography George Balanchine, born Georgi Balantschiwadse in 1904 in St. Petersburg, was one of the most influential pioneers of neoclassical ballet. His path through life, which led him from St. Petersburg to various locations in Western Europe and finally to New York, reads like a journey through the history of dance over the last 100 years: rooted in the ballet world of tsarist Russia and strongly influenced by the aesthetic of Petipa, he joined the Ballets Russes and thus the avant-garde movement in Paris and changed his name to George Balanchine. In 1928 he created Apollo, his first masterpiece for Diaghilev’s dance troupe, and thus laid the foundation for his own aesthetic.

An invitation to the United States in 1933 enabled Balanchine to develop his unique style, working with dancers who had been specifically trained for this purpose. Impresario Lincoln Kirstein persuaded him to become director of a new ballet school, with a view to forming his own company. The School of American Ballet opened in 1934 with an educational concept which had been specially formulated by Balanchine.

From the training of dancers, which always formed the basis of his understanding of dance, Balanchine’s path led him to choreography – and what was originally intended as a kind of exercise became his first American masterpiece, Serenade.

Further works were to follow at the Metropolitan Opera, for Hollywood and on Broadway, and more and more new ballets were created for his company, which from 1948 onwards became known as the New York City Ballet and which was soon to become one of the world’s leading dance ensembles. In addition to many new creations, including Concerto Barocco (1941), The Four Temperaments (1946) and Orphée (1948), Balanchine built an extensive repertoire based on his existing works. He was able to focus on honing his aesthetic, which had one goal in particular: with the utmost clarity, to make dancing of central importance as a way of making music with the body. The incarnation of this style, and one of the most important examples of New York modernism in the 1950s, was the ballet Agon. Further significant works were created in the following two decades with Liebeslieder Walzer (1960), Jewels (1967), Symphony in Three Movements (1972), Stravinsky Violin Concerto (1972), Chaconne (1976), Davidsbündlertänze (1980) and Mozartiana (1981).

When George Balanchine died in New York on 3 May 1983, he left behind a life’s work comprising around 450 ballets, many of which still form part of the repertoires of the world’s great dance companies today.

The Vienna State Ballet first presented a choreography by the neoclassical composer in 1958 with the pas de trois from Paquita and has since performed no fewer than 20 of his pieces.

BIOGRAPHIES

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PAUL CONNELLY – Musical Direction Paul Connelly, trained at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, gained his first professional experience as an assistant at the opera houses in Boston, Santa Fe and San Francisco and made his debut at the age of twenty-four as conductor of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Houston Grand Opera. In San Francisco, he was Music Director of the Affiliate Artists Programme for Opera and was awarded an Exxon/Arts Endowment Conducting Fellowship. At the invitation of Mikhail Baryshnikov, he joined the American Ballet Theatre as Principal Conductor, where he had the opportunity to work with choreographers such as George Balanchine, Kenneth MacMillan, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp and Anthony Tudor. At the same time, he was invited as a guest conductor with the New York City Ballet, Nureyev and Friends, and as Music Director of Baryshnikov and Co. He was also appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the National Ballet of Canada and worked on film and television productions including Baryshnikov’s Don Quixote with the ABT, Live from Lincoln Center and the series Dance in America. His major opera productions during this period included conducting Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice, Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

In 1991, Paul Connelly made his debut at the Vienna State Opera with a ballet gala, followed by Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. To date, he has conducted there the Vienna State Ballet’s productions of The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, La Fille mal gardée, Giselle, Jewels, Swan Lake and recently Callirhoe.

Engagements throughout Europe followed, including the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, as well as the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, where several productions were filmed under his baton, including Giselle, John Neumeier’s Sylvia, George Balanchine’s Jewels and a programme of works by Roland Petit.

Further appearances have taken him to the Opéra de Nice, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Budapest State Opera, Den Norske Opera Oslo, Zurich Opera House, Royal Ballet London, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Berlin State Ballet, Tokyo Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Korean National Ballet and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where he most recently conducted Alexei Ratmansky’s Coppélia. He also collaborated with the Danish Radio Orchestra and the Orchestre Colonne in Paris. In 2025, he was invited to the Teatro San Carlo to conduct a concert of American repertoire, among others.

Paul Connelly’s DVD recordings include Mauro Bigonzetti’s Caravaggio with the Berlin State Ballet, Rudolf Nureyev’s The Nutcracker with the Vienna State Ballet and Christian Spuck’s Nutcracker and Mouse King with the Zurich Ballet.

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BIOGRAPHIES

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Jewels George Balanchine Season 2025/26 PUBLISHER Vienna State Opera GmbH, Opernring 2, 1010 Vienna General Director: Dr. Bogdan Roščić Financial Director: Dr. Petra Bohuslav Director Vienna State Ballet: Alessandra Ferri Managing Director Vienna State Ballet: Mag.a Simone Wohinz Editorial Team: Nastasja Fischer MA, Mag.a Iris Frey Design & Concept: Fons Hickmann M23, Berlin Layout & Type Setting: Miwa Meusburger Producer: Print Alliance HAV Produktions GmbH, Bad Vöslau PERFORMING RIGHTS For the Choreography: © The George Balanchine Trust, New York. The Ballet is presented by arrangement with The George Balanchine Trust and has been produced in accordance with the Balanchine Style® and Balanchine Technique® service standards established and provided by the Trust.

For the Music: Cappricio for piano and orchestra by Igor Stravinsky © Boosey & Hawkes, London TEXT REFERENCES About today’s performance (english translation: David Tushingham) from Iris Frey as well as the interview with Paul Connelly are original contributions for this programme booklet. / The text from Dr. Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller is an original contribution from the programme booklet Jewels from season 2019/20. (english translation: David Tushingham) / p. 8: Suzanne Farrell quoted after www.nytimes.com / p. 9: George Balanchine quoted after pointemagazine.com / p. 17: Lincoln Kirstein quoted after www.pnb.org / p. 21: George Balanchine quoted after https://cso.org Reproduction only with the permission of the Vienna State Ballet/Dramaturgy.

produced according to the Austrian Ecolabel criteria for printed matter (Uz24), Print Alliance HAV Produktions GmbH, UW-NR 715

PHOTO CREDITS Cover: Ewa Bathelier, Blue, from the private collection of Kathryn and Stephen Mee, Sydney / pp. 4 – 7 (taken in the 2019/20 & 2020/21 seasons), 26 – 34: © Ashley Taylor / p. 23: © Van Cleef & Arpels / p. 25: akg-images/ TTNews Agency/SVT (taken from the programme booklet Jewels from the season 2019/20) / p. 36: © George Platt Lynes / p. 37: © Attila Nagy Right Owners who could not be reached are requested to contact the editorial team for the purpose of subsequent legal reconciliation.

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