Experience George Balanchine's masterpiece Jewels, a ballet that chronicles three epochs of dance through three glittering acts. The founder of New York City Ballet uses precious stones as both inspiration and metaphor – the green emerald to Fauré's music captures 19th-century romantic French ballet with its lyrical beauty, the red ruby to Stravinsky's music radiates the energetic American spirit of the jazz age, while the white diamond concludes with Tchaikovsky's music as a tribute to the splendor and virtuosity of imperial Russian ballet.
Balanchine was fascinated by the windows of New York's renowned jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels, which he passed daily during walks down Fifth Avenue. There he found inspiration to create a ballet that simultaneously documents his own life journey – from childhood in Russia, through youth in France, to his new life in America. Jewels is both a celebration of dance's evolution and an intimate portrait of a ballet master's remarkable career.
