NEW YORK, NY.- New York City Ballets 2024-25 season will feature earlier curtain times, fewer intermissions and a tribute to the great American ballerina Maria Tallchief, the company announced Monday.
Starting in the fall, in response to audience feedback and what Wendy Whelan, City Ballets associate artistic director, called new ways of life after the pandemic, curtain times will be pushed up, with all evening performances beginning at 7:30 p.m. (Matinees will remain at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays.) In addition, about 40% of the seasons repertory performances will include only one intermission, down from the standard two.
Slightly shorter performances without an intermission makes everybody happy dancers, audience members, everybody, said Jonathan Stafford, City Ballets artistic director. Youre still getting the same quality of performance but in a slightly shorter time frame.
The lineup will feature 30 ballets by company co-founder George Balanchine, including, in the winter, a revival of his final work, Variations for Orchestra (1982); seven works by Jerome Robbins; and three world premieres.
The new works will be by Caili Quan (Oct. 9), set to Camille Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1; by City Ballets resident choreographer Justin Peck (Jan. 29), to an original score by Dan Deacon; and by Alexei Ratmansky (Feb. 6), the companys artist in residence. He will stage a suite of dances from Marius Petipas full-length Paquita that incorporates the Minkus Pas de Trois, Balanchines restaging of the ballets pas de trois.
Whelan said audiences will get a feel for the spectrum of what we do here and what were capable of.
She added: Its a very wide range of work.
The season opens Sept. 17 with a program of works by Balanchine and Robbins: Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2, Duo Concertant and Glass Pieces.
And the company will celebrate many anniversaries: Justin Pecks 10th as resident choreographer, with an all-Peck program beginning Sept. 24; the 50th anniversary of Balanchine and Alexandra Danilovas Coppélia, with seven performances starting Sept. 27; the 90th anniversary of the founding of the company-affiliated School of American Ballet with a program Oct. 1; and a tribute, in her centennial year, to Maria Tallchief with a program of three Balanchine ballets created for her: Scotch Symphony, Sylvia Pas de Deux and Firebird.
The commemoration of the School of American Ballet founded in 1934, more than a decade before City Ballet will feature Balanchines Serenade, the first work created for the schools students and the first ballet Balanchine made in the United States; and Mozartiana, one of his last works, which features students from the schools childrens division.
The season will also include the return of Tiler Pecks Concerto for Two Pianos (Oct. 9); the stage premiere of Kyle Abrahams When We Fell (May 16, 2025), which debuted on film during the pandemic shutdown; and company premieres of Lar Lubovitchs Each in His Own Time (Sept. 19) and Gianna Reisens Signs (Oct. 9).
Its a really impressive list of new ballets that you just dont really see anywhere else, Stafford said. Its an embarrassment of riches sometimes with the new works and the voices we get to uplift each year.
A full lineup can be found at nycballet.com.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.