Serenade is a romantic work of immense sweep, set to a transcendent Tschaikovsky score.

Serenade is a milestone in the history of dance. It is the first original ballet George Balanchine created in America and is one of the signature works of New York City Ballet’s repertory. Balanchine began the ballet as a lesson in stage technique and worked unexpected rehearsal events into the choreography. A student’s fall or late arrival to rehearsal became part of the ballet.

After its initial presentation, Serenade was reworked several times. In its present form there are four movements: “Sonatina”, “Waltz”, “Russian Dance”, and “Elegy.” The last two movements reverse the order of Tschaikovsky’s score, ending the ballet on a note of sadness.

“In everything that I did to Tschaikovsky’s music, I sensed his help. It wasn’t real conversation. But when I was working and saw that something was coming of it, I felt that it was Tschaikovsky who had helped me.”

George Balanchine

An iconic Balanchine work that was part of NYCB’s inaugural performance in 1948, this highly-stylized, narrative ballet depicts Orpheus’ journey to rescue his beloved Eurydice from the underworld.

Orpheus occupies a singular place in the history of New York City Ballet.  The score was commissioned from Stravinsky by Ballet Society and the composer worked in close collaboration with Balanchine on the ballet – a contemporary treatment of the story of Orpheus, the musician-poet of Greek myth, and his struggle to rescue his wife Eurydice from Hades.  It was a performance of this work that led Morton Baum, chairman of the executive committee of the City Center of Music and Drama, to invite Ballet Society to become its permanent ballet company, under the new name, New York City Ballet.  Orpheus was presented with Concerto Barocco and Symphony in C at the New York City Ballet’s first performance on October 11, 1948.

A work that drips with gilded grandeur, Theme and Variations pays tribute to Balanchine’s imperial Russia with its regal structure and sumptuous Tschaikovsky score.

An intensive display of the classical ballet lexicon, Theme and Variations was intended, as Balanchine wrote, “to evoke that great period in classical dancing when Russian ballet flourished with the aid of Tschaikovsky’s music.” Set to the final movement of Tschaikovsky’s third orchestral suite, the score consists of a theme and 12 variations, culminating in a polonaise in the Imperial style. Arguably the most substantial part of the suite, Tschaikovsky himself began the concert tradition of playing this final movement as a separate piece. Balanchine created Theme and Variations in 1947 for Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre), and it briefly entered the NYCB repertory in 1960. In 1970 Balanchine used the complete orchestral suite to create Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3, and Theme and Variations, with a few minor revisions, returned to the repertory as the fourth and final movement of the ballet.