Jewels

In Denmark, August Bournonville's name is written in capital letters on the cover of all textbooks. But in the United States, no one has filled in as much in ballet history as George Balanchine. The Russian-American dancer, choreographer and later co-founder of the ballet beacon New York City Ballet didn't just create some of history's most beloved ballets. He also invented a unique idiom and style that for almost 100 years has travelled the globe, forming schools and delighting novices and connaisseurs in theatres all over the world.

Balanchine lived most of his adult life in New York, and it was also where he got the inspiration for Jewels. On his daily walks down Fifth Avenue in New York, he often stopped and looked at the decoration of one of the street's finest jewelers, Van Cleef & Arpels. Here he was fascinated by “a window with diamonds, one with emeralds and one with rubies, and in the middle of each group was a tiara on display, just like at the tsar's court”. Thus the idea of a ballet about the Three Jewels was born.

Jewels are a journey into history. Both the ballet's and the master's own. Balanchine uses the gems to describe three eras in dance history that elegantly intertwine with the most important stages of his own life — from childhood in Russia to adolescence in France to his new life in the United States.

The Green Emeralds, to music by Fauré, is a tribute to the romantic French ballet of the 19th century — lyrically, with a hint of quiet sadness and longing. The Red Rubies are, with Stravinsky's score, like the energetic United States of the jazz age — razor-sharp and dynamic. And as the closing highlight comes the White Diamonds, accompanied by Tchaikovsky's music, in a declaration of love for the heyday of the Russian Imperial Ballet -- virtuoso, elegant and sumptuous.

Recommended from 6 years