Ultimate Balanchine

Boston Ballet presents the crown jewels of choreographer George Balanchine’s work with Ultimate Balanchine, featuring The Four Temperaments, Apollo and Theme and Variations. The Four Temperaments, choreographed in 1946, is a ballet divided into themes: Melancholic, Sanguinic, Phlegmatic and Choleric. The Four Temperaments features Balanchine’s signature invention, a fusion of traditional and contemporary movement, which would become a new language in dance. In summer 2007, Boston Ballet toured The Four Temperaments before international audiences in Spain receiving critical acclaim. Apollo, originally choreographed in 1928 for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, marked the beginning of a lasting and significant relationship between Balanchine and Stravinsky. The work, one Balanchine regarded as milestone in his career, centers around the young god of music who is visited by three muses. Theme and Variations, set to Tchaikovsky, received its premiere in 1947. A spectacular, glittering work, Theme and Variations evokes the purity and beauty of the classics. Boston Ballet continues to develop and expand its Balanchine repertoire and was recently hailed by The New York Times for the 2009 production of Jewels.