Ballet: Living Legacies

Living Legacies not only brings together two groundbreaking choreographers in George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton whose works remain “state of the art” for any ballet company and who had a decisive influence on the development of classical dance, but also leads us into the present with Christopher Wheeldon, making continuities and discontinuities evident. The legacy of classical ballet lives on, not just by continuing choreographic traditions, but also by rethinking and reinterpreting them and through the dancers who perform them in the here and now.

An homage to the great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is what George Balanchine wanted to create with his Divertimento Nr. 15. Inspired by the clarity, multiplicity and elegance that distinguishes the Austrian’s oeuvre, the result is one of the choreographer’s most gossamer-like works: “This particular divertimento is probably the greatest of its kind. It presents Mozart from his best side, by infusing the familiar form of court music with warm dignity, playfulness and tender, lyric beauty”, Balanchine says, and lets the movement in his choreography entirely follow the composition in keeping with his principle: “see the music, hear the dance”. “In Balanchine’s setting of Mozart’s music, we can feel that these two great minds were genuine ‘soulmates’,” the ballet critic Richard Buckle wrote about this work which premiered in 1956 with New York City Ballet.

Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour, first premiered in 2008 with San Francisco Ballet, was originally inspired by the light and golden colours in the paintings of Gustav Klimt. Wheeldon also saw the sensual shimmering qualities that were the hallmarks of Klimt’s art in the music of Ezio Bosso, which was complemented for this creation with the andante from Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in B major, and thus embarked on a choreographic journey that focussed above all on moments of fleeting beauty. As a result, the seven movements of the ballet are “to be regarded as a series of small paintings or sketches that have been inspired by the music,” Wheeldon describes his creation, which extends its classical movement material with other forms of dance, as evoking “a new and interesting view of a ballet step.”

Rhapsody is one of Frederick Ashton’s last works and was premiered in 1980 to mark the 80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Ashton created it for the legendary dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, who performed it as a guest dancer with the Royal Ballet London. Rhapsody combines the brilliance of Russian technique with the lyricism of the English style – entirely in Ashton’s sprit. A non-narrative but powerfully expressive ballet unfolds to Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. The dancer’s explosive jumps and spinning turns meet the feather-light precision and graceful lines of the ballerina. This ballet is a glowing tribute to Ashton’s incomparable and influential style and to his extraordinary career: “a timeless masterpiece of classicism and sparkling artistic virtuosity.”

The musical range of the evening extends from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Sergei Rachmaninoff. Mozart’s Divertimento No. 15 captivates with its clarity, structure, and dance-like elegance. In contrast, the music for Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour unfolds a distinctive sonic world, combining contemporary compositions by Ezio Bosso with additions based on works by Antonio Vivaldi. Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, in turn, blends virtuosic brilliance with emotional depth.

With Living Legacies, another production enters the repertoire that brings Ballet Director Alessandra Ferri’s vision to life and anchors classical dance in the present: “It is an integral part of who we are. I understand its depth in the same way as classical music: it never goes out of fashion because it is an extraordinary art form. Of course, new works and new forms are being created today and that is important and wonderful, but the classical is our identity. And I stand by that identity. The audience that comes to our performances expects classical ballet, and the dancers who have trained their entire lives for it want to dance exactly that. It is in their DNA. We are a classical company and at the same time open to diverse approaches to this art form. We have the opportunity to further develop classical ballet, to find new narrative and expressive forms without denying its origins.”

While Divertimento No. 15 celebrated its premiere at the Vienna State Opera in1990, Ashton’s Rhapsody and Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour received their first Vienna performances at the Ballet Gala 2026.

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(Source: wiener-staatsoper.at)