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The second program (Program B) opened with Balanchine’s Mozartiana, a ballet that held a very unique and special place in the choreographer’s life. This dance also has a deeply personal meaning for Suzanne Farrell.

“He had not just made a ballet with Mozartiana, he had altered and extended the spectrum of my life,” wrote Farrell in her book “Holding On to the Air.” “It was because this ballet existed that I could survive the death of the man who made it.”

The first version of Mozartiana, a five-part ballet set to Tchaikovsky’s Suite No 4 – a picturesque and expressive orchestration of Mozart piano pieces – was premiered by Les Ballets 1933 in Paris more than seventy years ago. Over the course of his life, Balanchine had revised this ballet three times, altering not only the choreography but also the costumes and decorations, each revision reflecting the emotional and physical state of the choreographer.

A previous version of Mozartiana, which premiered in 1945 in New York, was described by the prominent dance critic Edwin Denby as “full of personal life as an ancient town on the Mediterranean on a holiday morning in the bright sun.” Denby was elated by “the open, clear, and sunny tone” of the ballet; its playfulness and happiness; and its light and subtle atmosphere.

The 1981 rebirth of Mozartiana, created for the New York City Ballet’s Tchaikovsky Festival, was the Balanchine’s final masterpiece, a formal requiem to his art and a farewell gift to his beloved muse Farrell. The choreography reveals a double imprint of Balanchine’s consummate mastery and his tragic destiny.

The ballet opens with the poignant and serene Preghiera. The stage, adorned with a long dark drapery, evokes a solemn chapel subtly illuminated by nocturnal light. The leading ballerina is surrounded by the four little girls all dressed in black tulip-shaped gowns. Their hands gently rise skywards as if in a prayer, creating an image of divine and nostalgic beauty. The choreography is characterized by crystalline purity and tenderness of movements, so the dance imagery, visually exquisite and emotionally moving, transcends the music.

Bonnie Pickard danced the leading role with refined technique and absolute authority. She had been very impressive in Scotch Symphony the night before, and in Mozartiana, Pickard demonstrated her finest dancing qualities once again.

The bright Gigue, confidently danced by Kirk Henning, was followed by the sublime Menuet, performed by a quartet of ballerinas (Amy Brandt, Violetta Angelova, Lisa Reneau, and Katelyn Prominski). In Theme et Variation, a pas de deux for the leading ballerina and her cavalier (Jared Redick), the excellent Pickard enchanted the audience with the elegance and fluency of her dancing.

Mozartiana culminated with the glorious finale for the entire cast envisioned by Balanchine as a triumph of beauty and celebration of life.

Dance is an elusive art. A ballet exists only if it continues to be performed, and the majority of the 400 ballets Balanchine created during his long, prolific career haven’t been performed for more than 40 years. Unfortunately, many of them are lost forever. That is why the Suzanne Farrell Ballet’s Balanchine Preservation Initiative is a project of such profound importance. Using videos of past performances, documents and notes, and relying on her own memory and experience, Farrell not only revives some of the “forgotten” Balanchine ballets, she carefully documents the process of restoration to prevent these dances from future disappearance. She compares her work to the process of fitting pieces of a puzzle together and dealing with the fact that some pieces are inevitably missing. The most challenging part of the restoration process is bridging the gaps between the surviving fragments of choreography while staying as true as possible to the original Balanchine’s vision.
 

As part of the Balanchine Preservation Initiative, Program B included the newly restored Divertimento Brillante, a concluding pas de deux of the four-part ballet Glinkiana –Balanchine’s tribute to the great Russian composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857). This classical duet – a dazzling showcase for a ballerina – is a perfect example of the conventional Balanchine “tutu and tiara” ballet. Here the ballerina is “the goddess, the poetess, and the muse.” She is presented in all her splendor, clad in a sumptuous emerald costume and shiny diadem; and given the most elegant choreographic vocabulary: stately arabesques, exquisite turns and eloquent pirouettes.

Sadly, the performance of Shannon Parsley and Momchil Mladenov didn’t live up to my expectations. In Divertimento Brillante the choreography, music and décor are perfectly laced together, but on this evening the important piece of this ‘puzzle’ – an inspiring and polished dancing – was missing.

The program also included performances of Maurice Bejart’s Scene d’amour from Romeo and Juliet and Balanchine’s Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.