The Enduring Legacy of George Balanchine

Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center

December 3, 2003April 24, 2004

 

 

 

TRAINING AND EARLY CHOREOGRAPHY 1904-1933

 

Tamara, George and Andrei Balanchine in harlequin costumes, ca. 1911.

Unidentified photographer

Digital enlargement 9 ¾ in. x 6 in. of a gelatin-silver copy print, 6-3/8 in. x 4-3/8 in

Courtesy of New York City Ballet Archives, Ballet Society Collection

 

George Balanchine, his brother Andrei, and sister Tamara, ca. 1907.

Unidentified photographer     

Gelatin-silver copy print, 7 in. x 9-3/8 in.

Courtesy of New York City Ballet Archives, Ballet Society Collection

 

Portrait of George Balanchine, ca. 1924.

Photograph by Vladimir Dmitriev

Exhibition enlargement 5 ft. x 3 ft. 9 in.

 

Alexandra Danilova and Serge Lifar in George Balanchine’s ballet Apollon Musagetes, to music by Igor Stravinsky, Diaghilev Ballets Russes, 1928.

Unidentified photographer

Photographic enlargement mounted on masonite, 30 in. x 40 in.

 

I look back on Apollo as the turning point of my life. 

The score was a revelation.  It seemed to tell me that I too

could eliminate.  I began to see how I could clarify by limiting,

by reducing to the one possibility that is inevitable.

 

Pavel Tchelitchew

Study of an angel, two attendants and a woman in the revised version of George Balanchine’s L’Errante, music by Franz Schubert, for the American Ballet Company, New York, 1935.

Gouache, 17 ¾ in. x 11 in.

Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Fund

 

Pavel Tchelitchew

Costume design for two young men in George Balanchine’s ballet L’Errante, Les Ballets 1933.

Gouache, 22 in. x 14 ¼ in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

 

LES BALLETS 1933 AND THE INVITATION

 

Letter from Lincoln Kirstein, written from London, July 16, 1933, to A. Everett Austin, Jr., Director of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut.

Photocopy

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein and the Wadsworth Atheneum

 

Portrait of George Balanchine, 1933.

Photograph by George Platt Lynes

Gelatin-silver print, 9-7/8 in. x 8 in.

 

Portrait of Edward M.M. Warburg, ca. 1930s

Unidentified photographer

Gelatin-silver print, 10 in x 8 in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

 

Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein, ca. 1930s

Photograph by George Platt Lynes

Gelatin-silver print, 8 in. x 10 in.

 

“Sponsors for the Exhibit of Contemporary Art at Harvard”

Photocopy, unidentified newspaper, 10 in. x 8 in.

Courtesy of New York City Ballet Archives, Ballet Society Collection

 

Alfred Eisenstadt                               

Students at the School of American Ballet, ca. 1934.

Exhibition enlargement 3 ft. 4 in. x 4 ft. 2 in.

 

When our School of American Ballet opened in

January 1934 in an old loft building on Madison

Avenue at 59th Street in space which was once

Isadora Duncan’s studio, there was nothing apparent

save big windows, high ceilings, and the strong

if unorganized intention of creating a national institution.

 

Serenade, performed by students of the School of American Ballet on an outdoor platform at the Felix Warburg estate, June 10, 1934.  A ballet to Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, Serenade was the first American work by George Balanchine.

Unidentified photographer

Gelatin-silver print, 6 in. x 9-3/8 in.

 

Annabelle Lyon, Ruthanna Boris, Helen Leitch, Holly Howard and Elise Reiman in Serenade, American Ballet Company, 1935.

Photograph by Vandamm Studio

Gelatin-silver print, 8 in. x 10 in.

 

The Producing Company of the School of American Ballet

Program

Avery Memorial Theatre, Hartford, Connecticut, December 6-8, 1934

Letterpress, 8 ½ in. x 8 ½ in.

 

Jean Lurçat

Costume design for Serenade, 1934.

Watercolor and ink, 11 ¾ in. x 9 in.

Courtesy of Nancy Lassalle

 

We must first realize that dancing is an important

independent art, not merely a secondary accompanying one.

 

 John Held

Two costume designs for the George Balanchine’s Alma Mater, to music by Kay Swift, orchestrated by Morton Gould, American Ballet Company, 1935.

Watercolor and ink, 8 ½ in. x 6-5/8 in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

                                                                       

Gisella Caccialanza and William Dollar in Alma Mater, American Ballet Company, 1935.

Photograph by Vandamm Studio

Gelatin-silver print, 8 in. x 10 in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

 

George Balanchine’s Alma Mater, American Ballet Company, 1935, signed by the dancers.

Unidentified photographer

Gelatin-silver print, 8 in. x 10 in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

 

 

THE EARLY COMPANIES AND BROADWAY 1934-1945

 

On Broadway I learned how to please the public.

I am commercial.

 

On Your Toes was George Balanchine’s first major Broadway show.  Written by Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and George Abbott, with music and lyrics by Roger and Hart, it opened in 1936.  This window card is for the 1983 revival. 

Advertising window card, offset lithography, 22 in. x 14 in.

Billy Rose Theater Collection

 

Tamara Geva, Ray Bolger and George Church in On Your Toes, 1936.

Photograph by Jerome Robinson

Gelatin-silver print, 7 ½ in. x 10 in.

Gift of Dorene Church

 

The Boys from Syracuse, George Balanchine’s fourth Broadway production was based on Shakespeare’s play The Comedy of Errors, with Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and George Abbott, opened in 1938.

Advertising window card, letterpress, 19 ½ in. x 12 ¾ in.

Billy Rose Theater Collection

 

Three production photographs of The Boys from Syracuse, with Heidi Vosseler, Betty Bruce and George Church, 1938.

Photographs by Vandamm Studio and Jerome Robinson

Gelatin-silver prints, 8 in. x 10 in., 7 in. x 10-1/8 in. and 9-7/8 in. x 7 in.       

Gift of Dorene Church

 

Cover of Life Magazine, December 28, 1936, showing members of the American Ballet Company, which was appointed the resident ballet company of the Metropolitan Opera.

Photograph by Alfred Eisenstadt

Exhibition enlargement 5 ft. x 3 ft. 9 in.        

 

Article about the American Ballet Company in Life Magazine, December 28, 1936, marking its appointment as the resident ballet company of the Metropolitan Opera.

Photographs by Alfred Eisenstadt

Letterpress, two-page spread, 14 in x 21 in.

                       

George Balanchine, Igor Stravinsky, stagehands and dancers in a backstage card game at the Metropolitan Opera.  The photograph publicized the Balanchine/Stravinsky ballet The Card Party, danced by the American Ballet Company at the Metropolitan Opera, 1937.

Photograph by Raymond Smith

Gelatin-silver print, 7-5/8 in. x 9 ½ in.

 

William Dollar and Daphne Vane in Orfeo ed Eurydice, to music by C.W. Gluck, costumes by Pavel Tchelitchew, American Ballet Company at the Metropolitan Opera, 1936.

Photograph by George Platt Lynes

Gelatin-silver print, 9 in. x 7-3/8 in.

 

Lew Christensen and William Dollar in Orfeo ed Eurydice, 1936.

Photograph by George Platt Lynes

Gelatin-silver print, 9 in. x 7-3/8 in.

 

Alice Halicka

Costume design for a Russian peasant woman in George Balanchine’s Le Baiser de la Fée, to music by Igor Stravinsky, after a story by Hans Christian Andersen, premiered by the American Ballet Company at the Metropolitan Opera, April 27, 1937.  This design was for a 1947 production of Balanchine’s ballet at the Paris Opera.

Watercolor and pencil, 20 ½ in. x 13 ½ in.

Cia Fornaroli Fund

 

William Dollar and Gisella Caccialanza in Le Baiser de la Fée, American Ballet Company at the Metropolitan Opera, 1937.

Photograph by Richard Tucker

Gelatin-silver print, 6 ½ in. x 8 ½ in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

 

Members of the American Ballet Company in Le Baiser de la Fée, 1937.

Photograph by Richard Tucker

Gelatin-silver print, 8-1/8 in. x 10 in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

                                                                       

Lew Christensen in the title role of George Balanchine’s Apollo, ca. 1937.

Photograph by George Platt Lynes

Gelatin-silver print, 9 ¾ in. x 7 ½ in.

 

Lew Christensen and Elise Reiman in George Balanchine’s Apollo, American Ballet Company at the Metropolitan Opera, 1937

Photograph by Schulmann.

Gelatin-silver print, 5-5/8 in. x 8 ½ in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

                                                                       

Lew Christensen and Marie-Jeanne in Apollo, American Ballet Company at the Metropolitan Opera, 1937.

Photograph by Schulmann

Gelatin-silver print, 6 ¾ in. x 11 ½ in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

 

Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinskii

Scenic design for Ballet Imperial, American Ballet Caravan, 1941.

Gouache and pencil, 15 in. x 20 in.

Dance Committee Purchase Fund

                                                                       

George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial, to Tchaikovsky’s Piano concerto no. 2 in G major, costumes and scenery by Dobuzhinskii, American Ballet Caravan, 1941.

Photograph by Philippe Halsman

Gelatin-silver print, 7 ¾ in. x 9-5/8 in.

 

Audition for School of American Ballet, 1940.  Tanaquil Le Clercq is immediately to the right of teacher Kyra Blanc.

Unidentified photographer

Gelatin-silver print, 7 ¼ in. x 9-5/8 in.

 

School of American Ballet

Catalog 1941-42

Letterpress, 9 in. x 6 in.

 

Music and the Dance (a workshop course)

Attention will be focused on the most important elements of

construction within a musical work, and their relation to

the dance movements based on it.  Studies in movement

and rhythmic gesture will be worked out, in collaboration with dance

instructors, beginning with the smallest particles of the given

musical material, progressing to the full complexity of its complete

form, and an ensuing complete awareness of the relations of

the complementary functions of music and dance.

            This course will include a study of the rudiments of music,

musical notation, reading and memorizing exercises, studies

in rhythm with the aid of percussion instruments, analysis

of musical form and construction.

 

Dance Forms in Music

This is a lecture-demonstration course (with phonographic recordings)

which will encompass the dance forms of the pre-classic, classic

and romantic periods of England, France, Germany, and Austria,

Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Russia, Hungary,

Czechoslovakia, North America, Mexico, and Cuba, Brazil, and Argentina. 

Dance forms will be analyzed as to their characteristics of musical

structure and their national and historical background, with

a view to giving the dance student insight into the great variety of styles.

 

                        From the 1940 catalog of the School of American Ballet

 

 

RKO Pathé Films                               

George Balanchine partnering a student at the School of American Ballet, ca. 1934.

George Balanchine teaching class at the School of American Ballet, ca. 1934.

Prints from two frames of motion picture film, 4 in x 5 in.

 

American Ballet Company

Souvenir program, 1935.

Letterpress, 12 in. x 9 in.

 

George Balanchine with students of the School of American Ballet, 1948.  Edward Villella is center.

Photograph by George Platt Lynes

Gelatin-silver print, 7 ½ in x 9-5/8 in.

 

George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, to Johan Sebastian Bach’s Double violin concerto in D minor, costume design by Eugene Berman, American Ballet Company, first performance at Hunter College Playhouse, May 28, 1941.

Photograph by George Platt Lynes

Gelatin-silver print, 7 ½ in. x 9 ¼ in.

 

Ballet Caravan

Souvenir program, 1940-41

Letterpress, 12 ¼ in. x 9 ¼ in.

 

American Ballet Company

Programs:

Montevideo, Uruguay, 1941

São Paulo, Brazil, 1941

Letterpress, 9 ½ in. x 6 in.

 

American Ballet Company

Program showing the cover and an opening with texts about Concerto Barocco and El Marciélago (The Bat), with photographs by George Platt Lynes.

Letterpress, 10 in. x 7 in.

 

George Balanchine’s The Bat, to the overture of Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, costumes by Keith Martin, American Ballet Caravan, 1941.

Photograph by George Platt Lynes

Gelatin-silver print, 5-5/8 in. x 8-3/8 in.

Gift of Lincoln Kirstein

 

 

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