The cheerful 26-minute Donizetti Variations sets a series of effervescent dances to music from the opera Don Sebastien, offering choice but technically challenging roles for two bravura dancers and three supporting trios.

This ballet (originally titled Variations from "Don Sebastian") was created for "Salute to Italy," a 1960 New York City Ballet program celebrating the 100th anniversary of Italy’s unification. Balanchine created this cheerful and sunny work to offset the more somber tone of the other ballets on the program, which included La Sonnambula and Monumentum Pro Gesualdo.

Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 is an ebullient outpouring of classical technique with tiaraed tiers of corps de ballet dancers.

Balanchine first staged Tschaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto for the American Ballet Caravan in May 1941. Under the sponsorship of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs under the Roosevelt administration (Nelson A. Rockefeller, coordinator), the Caravan undertook a tour of South America, performing in every country except Paraguay and Bolivia.

It was felt that a classical ballet should be presented, but instead of reviving an existing ballet, Balanchine created a work in the style of Petipa and the Petersburg tradition. The decor, by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, showed the Neva, with the Peter-Paul Fortress, framed in the Imperial blue and white of the Winter Palace.

Ballet Imperial was revived in 1964 by New York City Ballet with new decor by Rouben Ter-Arutunian, who followed a similar visual approach. In 1973, Balanchine felt that the allusion to Imperial Russia was outmoded, and that the ballet could stand in relation to the music alone. The title was changed, the decor eliminated, the costumes simplified, and some of the pantomime in the second movement altered—but the choreography as a whole remained the same.

For the 2019 Winter Season, NYCB Director of Costumes Marc Happel has redesigned the costumes. Created with the generous support of Swarovski, the costumes and headpieces feature thousands of Swarovski crystals.

The Ballet Imperial was first staged for New York City Ballet by Frederic Franklin on 15 October 1964 at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center. Balanchine restaged it in 1973 with its current title. Traditional tutus and scenery in the grand Russian style were used through the 1964 NYCB revival; since 1973 it has been danced with chiffon skirts designed by Karinska and without scenery. Balanchine said that the ballet is "a contemporary tribute to Petipa, 'the father of the classical ballet,' and to Tschaikovsky, his greatest composer."