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How many Balanchine ballets have you seen?


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I'm glad someone mentioned "Noah and the Flood," which I saw on TV, as I did one of Mr. B's versions of "The Spellbound Child," Those had to be in the very early 80's.

I had completely forgotten about the tv version of Ravel's Spellbound Child. Yes, it was during the early 80s, I can place it because I had a vhs tape of it and bought my first videorecorder in late 1979.

Just as an aside I remember how horribly expensive the vhs blank tapes were. I used to wait until they were on sale , when they sold for about $15 each. Also very few stores carried them. Most of the time I bought them in Manhattan rather than NJ. I remember one time I needed a tape on short notice to tape some treasure or another (which I've completely forgotten about) and was forced to pay $25 dollars for a blank tape.

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I question the inclusion of Tricolore here. The Trust list excludes it, and the NYCB list only says Balanchine "conceived and supervised" it:

I agree with your conclusion and have deleted it from my original post.

The status of Tricolore is very puzzling. The last movement (the sailors and the semaphore signals and British flag) were included in the 1993 Balanchine Celebration, broadcast on PBS and sold on VHS for a time. As you note, Martins, Bonnefoux, and Robbins did the actual choreography. With so much to choose from for that Celebration, why pick that?

http://www.nycballet.com/company/rep.html?rep=424

I'm just guessing, but perhaps the Trust list only includes works which can be licensed and restaged?

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What was performed in the Balanchine Centennial in 1993 was the third movement of "Union Jack", a stand-alone ballet created in 1976 to celebrate the US Bicentennial. "Tricolore" (1978) was meant to be a tribute to France and Part 3 of "Entente Cordiale", ("Stars and Stripes", "Union Jack", and "Tricolore").

The Balanchine Catalog states that "Tricolore" was "conceived and supervised by George Balanchine. Choreography by Peter Martins, Jean-Pierre Bonnefous, and Jerome Robbins." Balanchine was too ill to choreograph it.

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What was performed in the Balanchine Centennial in 1993 was the third movement of "Union Jack", a stand-alone ballet created in 1976 to celebrate the US Bicentennial. "Tricolore" (1978) was meant to be a tribute to France and Part 3 of "Entente Cordiale", ("Stars and Stripes", "Union Jack", and "Tricolore").

Of course -- that makes sense. Thank you for the correction!

I see that "Entente Cordiale" is not included in the NYCB repertory list. Does anyone know if all three were ever performed on the same program?

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No, California, as I recall the single performance of an Entente Cordiale program never came to be, the reason being the decision to let Tricolore (which I never saw) die quietly. I don't think you should think of Entente Cordiale along similar lines as Jewels, because each ballet was conceptualized as a free-standing work. It's more along the lines of the "Greek program" (Apollo, Agon, Orpheus) or the "Bird program" (Swan Lake, Afternoon of a Faun, Firebird, Western Symphony) -- early forerunners of today's unfortunate and ubiquitous trend of themed programs.

Anyway, I thought it easier to list the ballets I have not seen from the Balanchine Trust's list. That list is far from exhaustive, because there are some Balanchine ballets I have seen that are not on it -- Mozart Violin Concerto and Cotillon, to name two off the top of my head. I just don't have the ambition at this point to dig out my Repertory in Review.

Concertino

Divertimento Brillante

Elegie (1948 and 1966)

Le Bal

Metamorphoses

Pas de Dix

Pulcinella

Oh, my goodness! :clapping:

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