Serenade / Sweet Violets / DGV, Royal Opera House

Serenade was the first ballet choreographed by George Balanchine after arriving in the United States in 1933, a work at once charming and rigorously academic. 

The original dancers in Serenade were students at Balanchine’s School of American Ballet.  In order to teach them the difference between being in class and being on stage, Mr B (as Balanchine became known) started creating mini-segments of dance for his classes to work on.  This class work became the basis of the ballet we know today. 

Given his first group contained 17 students, the opening of Serenade has 17 female dancers. One day a student was late for class, so in the corresponding segment Balanchine had one dancer enter the stage later than all the others. A dancer fell during rehearsals – Balanchine incorporated this into the choreography too. Male dancers joined the class – Mr B added roles for men. Little by little, this masterpiece came together, finding its final form in 1948 when it was first danced by the New York City Ballet.

We’re incredibly excited to see it return to the Royal Opera House this May as part of a triple bill of some of the most daring choreography of the past 100 years. Joining the ‘father of American ballet’ for the second and third instalments in this triptych are two decidedly British talents – the established Christopher Wheeldon, and the young Liam Scarlett, hailed as British choreography’s latest Wunderkind. 

Liam Scarlett’s Sweet Violets, set to music by Sergey Rachmaninoff,  is the newest piece here, having premiered in 2012. Scarlett's inspiration for this very dark ballet was the painter Walter Sickert, who was fascinated by gory crime in general and Jack the Ripper, in particular.  Reading the synopsis before settling in your seat is essential. The broody, atmospheric designs are by  John Macfarlane . 

Rounding off the bill is Wheeldon’s DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse. It was created for the Royal Ballet in 2006 and is set to music by another rather well-known Brit: Michael Nyman’s MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse).