Jewels

For all of you who have been asking about where the ballet in this blog is I want to mention Jewels, Balanchine's ballet that I saw yesterday at the New York City Ballet (I will also have more to say about baseball when the season starts).

Jewels was originally done for the NYC Ballet in 1967 and is considered the only full-length abstract ballet (that means no plot!).  This is enough to keep many people away but also to attract those of us who love Balanchine's ability to tell a story in a non-literal way.  All three parts indeed have "stories" of a sort, but stories that are subtle and implied and complex.  Diamonds and Rubies are the most popular of the three ballets because they are the most theatrical and the most similar to other Balanchine works.  But Emeralds is the only Balanchine done to Faure music, except the late small-scale Ballade done for Merrill Ashley.  Diamonds is structured like other Tschikovsky/Balanchine ballets, with quite a rousing climax, and Rubies is similar in structure to other Stravinsky ballets, especially Danses Concertantes, with elements of Stravinsky Violin Concerto.  But Emeralds is almost all andante, slow and even meditative.  It seems to take place in a forest glade, with hunters and perhaps fairies and there is an unusual emphasis on port-de-bras; the most beautiful and moving part is the end, a coda (added in 1977) where the four women leave the three men along on the stage, as they slowly kneel and raise their arms.