JEWELS - Royal Ballet

Showings

Cinema Arts Centre - Cinema 2 Sun, May 28, 2017 12:00 PM

Description

Royal Ballet

JEWELS
Sunday, May 28 at 12 noon | Members $11 | Public $16


Now celebrating its 50th year, George Balanchine’s sparkling ballet still shines with all the brilliance of the gemstones that inspired it. It uses three gemstones as starting points to explore an array of musical and dance styles, each intimately connected to Balanchine’s own life and career.

George Balanchine’s glittering ballet Jewels was inspired by the beauty of the gemstones he saw in the New York store of jewellers Van Cleef & Arpels. He went on to make history with this, the first abstract three-act ballet, first performed in 1967 by New York City Ballet. Each of the three movements draws on a different stone for its inspiration and a different composer for its sound. The French Romantic music of Fauré provides the impetus for the lyricism of ‘Emeralds’. The fire of ‘Rubies’ comes from Stravinsky and the jazz-age energy of New York. Grandeur and elegance complete the ballet in ‘Diamonds’, with the splendour of Imperial Russia and Tchaikovsky’s opulent Third Symphony. Each section salutes a different era in classical ballet’s history as well as a distinct period in Balanchine’s own life. Through it all, Balanchine displays his genius for combining music with visionary choreography. The performance lasts about 2 hours 30 minutes, including two intervals.