Balanchine Returns to San Francisco Ballet

The full ensemble for George Balanchine’s “Serenade” (from the San Francisco Ballet Web page for the program currently being presented)

Last night saw my return to the War Memorial Opera House for the second program in the 93rd season of the San Francisco Ballet. The title of the program was Balanchine: Father of American Ballet, and it presented three different aspects of George Balanchine’s highly inventive approaches to choreography. The program began with “Diamonds,” the last of the three Jewels ballets, set to the last four of the five movements of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 29, his third symphony in D major. The “keystone” of the program was the first choreography by Balanchine to be performed in New York. “Serenade” was set to Tchaikovsky’s Opus 48, his four-movement “Serenade for Strings.” The evening concluded with Balanchine’s best known “Americana” ballet, “Stars and Stripes,” set to music by John Philip Sousa, orchestrated by Hershy Kay.

I came to know all of these ballets during my student years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Once I had my own car, I would make regular trips from Cambridge into Manhattan. At that time the Boston Ballet repertoire included both “Serenade” and “Stars and Stripes;” but I still enjoyed watching the members of the New York City Ballet (NYCB) in Lincoln Center. With all that context, last night’s performance amounted to an extended trip down memory lane.

Fortunately, the trip was a good one. Mind you, NYCB has received its share of attention through the Great Performances television series; and I continue to enjoy watching those programs, even when they are repeated. Nevertheless, there is no substitute for the immediacy of the performance of ballet on the stage; and last night the San Francisco Ballet dancers could not have done better justice to that immediacy. Also, from my vantage point in the Dress Circle, I could fully appreciate the diversity of spacial designs that Balanchine invented for his choreography.

All three of last night’s performances were engaging from beginning to end. For works like these, I tend not to focus in individual virtuoso turns. I like to maintain awareness over the full stage, relishing the geometry of the patterns that unfold one after another. Mind you, since I was familiar with all three of these ballets, I knew what to expect and where to direct my glances! As a result, by the end of the meeting, I was more than satisfied to have my memories of some of my favorite ballets revived and presented with all the detail and energy that Balanchine would have expected.