Serenade: Part I
“It is a story about hope. If you are young and don’t know anything or have anything, you can change that.” (Joan Acocella, A Discussion on George Balanchine's "Serenade", NYT, 2016)
When George Balanchine arrived in America from Europe, ten years after he fled Russia, he was faced with a problem- nobody in America could dance. Until his arrival, the only real ballet American audiences had been exposed to were Russian and European companies touring. Balanchine opened the School of American Ballet to cultivate people who could dance in 1933, and the school gave its first performance the next year.
The program was presented in White Plains, New York, at an outdoor theatre set up on the estate of Felix and Frieda Warburg for their son’s birthday. The ballet was set to premier Saturday, June 9th, 1934, but before the final ballet could be performed, it rained. The next day, seventeen girls- some still in their early teens- took to the stage in an iconic double-diamond formation.
The ballet was called Serenade. It was the first ballet Balanchine choreographed in America, and, arguably, the first classical ballet piece fully created and performed in the US as well. It’s premier by a professional company was with Balanchine’s Ballet Caravan in 1935, with mostly the same cast as in 1934. Ninety years later, it is still one of the most prolific and widely performed ballets of the entire Balanchine cannon. “I started Serenade as evening classes to show how to be on the stage.” Balanchine said. At the time, he had been teaching his students for less than a year. None were extremely technique proficient- yet- and so he separated the “featured” roles to nine women. Over the years, this number changed- it was five for a while, and when he staged it on the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, in October 1940, he rigged the ballet to give one ballerina most of the featured parts- Marie Jeanne, who originated the principal role in the legendary ballets Ballet Imperial and Concerto Barocco, the next year. Today, the ballet is danced by three principal women- the Waltz Girl, or the Heroine, the Russian Girl and the Dark Angel.
The ballet, set to Tschaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C, Op. 48 (1880), is four movements; the Sonatina, the Waltz, the Elegy, and the Tema Russo or Russian dance. Balanchine originally only choreographed the first three movements, as separate, disconnected scenes with different leads. Eventually, he added the Tema Russo in 1940, placing it before the Elegy rather than in the correct order to keep the ending tone of the ballet the same.
Quick note: Serenade means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. That being said, I don’t want to go to deep into what I think it’s about because it’s a very subtle, open-to-interpretation kind of ballet. I personally recommend you watch the ballet, either in person or here or here on YouTube, and see what you think the deeper meaning is.
“Because Tchaikovsky’s score, though it was not composed for the ballet, has in its danceable four movements different qualities suggestive of different emotions and human situations, parts of the ballet seem to have a story: the apparently ‘pure’ dance takes on a kind of plot. But this plot, inherent in the score, contains many stories – it is many things to many listeners to the music, and many things to many people who see the ballet.” ( Balanchine in “New Complete Stories of the Great Ballets,” 1968)
This ballet is both plotless and plot-full; it is often pure dance, but sometimes, especially in the fourth-movement Elegy, there seems to be a story playing out on stage, although exactly what the story is is up to interpretation.
As there are many different outlooks on the plot of the ballet, there have been many interactions of costumes- these include short tunics, red wigs for the boys in the ballet, and even hats for the women. A quick search on the New York Public Library’s digital collection shows color-blocked dresses, short white leotards, capes and headbands. By 1952, we saw the finalization of blue, calf-length romantic tutus for the women and blue unitards for the men- the four men in the Elegy are called the “Blueberries”.
“Balanchine told one of his favorite dancers that the ballet could simply have been called “Ballerina.” (Toni Bentley, Wall Street Journal, 2010)
Serenade is a ballet of many names. When on tour, the ballet was called “Serenata” in Latin America and “Sérénade” in France. Toni Bentley called it “The Ballet that Changed Everything” in her 2010 Wall Street Journal article by that name. It is the 1st American ballet. It is “SerenAID” and “SerenAHD”.
Dance writer Alastair Macauley calls it “the echo-chamber ballet”. It references ballets Les Sylphides, Eros and Giselle. It involved the story of Orpheus, which Balanchine worked with while choreographing his ballet, “Orpheus”, and again while choreographing the opera, and again while using the music of the opera in his ballet Chaconne. There are hints at “vision scenes” of many ballets- Giselle, La Bayadere- and there are recalls back to itself. The opening formation repeats three times. Two girls fall over. Steps and gestures are repeated.
“There are three main girls in Serenade; the Waltz girl, the Russian girl, and the Dark Angel. I think everyone wants to dance the Waltz girls, she’s the one who falls on the floor at the end. It sort of looks likes she’s dying, she’s given up.” (Ashley Bouder, “Inside the Reperatory: Ashley Bouder on Serenade”, 2012)
The Waltz Girl
The heroine
“Dies”- falls downstage right at the very end of the Russian dance
Balanchine once called her the “wife”
The one who enters late at the end of the Sonatina
The Dark Angel
Balanchine once called her the “mistress”
Also once called the mans destiny- “Each man goes through the world with his destiny on his back. He sees a woman - he cares for her - but his destiny has other plans.” (Bernard Taper recalling what Balanchine said.)
Known for her arabesque
The Russian Girl
Balanchine once called her the “lover”, passing through
Spins and falls once in the Sonatina
One of five girls to start off the Russian dance
Known for quick jumps and footwork