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Boston Ballet Launches a New Era at the Opera House with Sensational 2009-2010 Season

BOSTON, MA: Boston Ballet Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen announced programming today for the Company’s 46th season, opening September 2009, at Boston Ballet’s new home theater, the Opera House. Nissinen’s season showcases the Company’s range and skill by featuring classic story ballets as well as works by renowned neoclassical and contemporary choreographers such as George Balanchine, Jiří Kylián and rising talents Helen Pickett and Viktor Plotnikov.

Boston Ballet commences its inaugural season at the Opera House with the fourth annual Night of Stars, a thrilling program that showcases the entire company. Boston Ballet’s all-star roster will shine especially bright with four new principal dancers, Kathleen Breen Combes, Melissa Hough, Misa Kuranaga and James Whiteside. Two weeks later, Boston Ballet opens its six-program schedule with Maina Gielgud’s acclaimed production of Giselle, last performed by the Company in 2007. The season continues with World Passions, a thrilling mixed repertory program featuring a new version of Paquita by Pino Alosa after Marius Petipa, Viktor Plotnikov’s Rhyme, Jorma Elo’s Carmen/Illusions and a World Premiere by Helen Pickett. The beloved Boston tradition, The Nutcracker, returns for the holiday season for its 42nd consecutive year. The season continues with a Company premiere of Balanchine’s classic Coppélia, a sparkling full-length ballet with more than 20 children, which has only been performed in its entirety by two other companies in the world. Following Coppélia is Ultimate Balanchine, a dynamic evening of Balanchine’s masterworks featuring The Four Temperaments, Apollo and Theme and Variations. In a unique move by Nissinen, the Company will bring back Jiří Kylián’s sensational Black and White as the final program of the season. Black and White, which Boston Ballet debuted to American audiences in February, created fireworks with audiences and critics alike. Never before done back-to-back, the program returns in spring 2010 to great audience demand.

“The Company’s 2009-2010 season is an exciting mix of remarkable works which reflect the elegance, history and culture of our new home, the Opera House. The season highlights so many fantastic styles of dance from the romantic and breathtaking Giselle, to evenings full of recent and world premiere works, balanced by Balanchine’s finest masterpieces. Boston Ballet will enter its new era with a bang,” said Nissinen. “It is a thrill to bring back Kylián’s Black and White, giving audiences a second chance to see this powerful program, and it is equally as exciting to make the Boston premiere of the bright and charming Coppélia. Boston Ballet continues to strive for excellence and range, and our audiences have responded with great enthusiasm. Next season will surprise and delight.”

Boston Ballet’s inaugural season at the Opera House brings more than a fantastic season of programming for audiences. Boston Ballet’s new home will feature a fully renovated orchestra pit with improved acoustics and functionality befitting the spectacular Boston Ballet Orchestra. The Opera House also boasts an intimate viewing experience and excellent sightlines.

All performances are held at The Opera House.

Night of Stars
September 19, 2009
Night of Stars, a spectacular showcase of Boston Ballet’s exciting repertoire, opens the 2009-2010 season at the Opera House. The evening features the talents of the entire company, including Boston Ballet’s Principal dancers and rising stars. Following the 2008 Night of Stars, Matthew Reed Baker of Boston Magazine wrote, “I’ll wax like a rhapsodic moon over Boston Ballet’s Night of Stars. It was the most thrilling performing arts experience I’ve had this year. [It] was as moving as it was exhilarating.” This unique evening provides audiences with a taste of the upcoming season, the talents of Boston Ballet and is the first opportunity for the company to welcome Boston audiences to its new home theater, the Opera House.

Giselle
October 1-11, 2009
Music: Adolfe Adam
Production and Staging: Maina Gielgud
Choreography: After Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot and Marius Petipa

Maina Gielgud’s production of Giselle takes the stage at the Opera House for the first time to open the Company’s season. Last presented in 2007, critics raved and The Boston Globe wrote, “This is a ‘Giselle’ that stays with you long after you leave the theater. You’ll be chilled to the bone, but also warmed to the heart.” Set to Adolphe Adam’s score, Giselle is the crowning achievement of the Romantic era of ballet, the most poetic of all nineteenth-century full-length works. Giselle, choreographed by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, received its triumphant world premiere in Paris on June 28, 1841 and soon became an international success. The ballet underwent a dramatic transformation when Marius Petipa staged the ballet in Russia twice in the 1880s and again in 1899. It is Petipa’s Giselle that has served as a model for most twentieth-century productions.

World Passions
October 22-November 1, 2009

Paquita – BOSTON BALLET PREMIERE
Music: Ludwig Minkus
Choreography: Pino Alosa after Marius Petipa

Rhyme
Music: Frederic Chopin
Choreography: Viktor Plotnikov

WORLD PREMIERE
Choreography: Helen Pickett

Carmen/Illusions
Music: Rodion Shchedrin
Choreography: Jorma Elo

An evening of variety and innovation by four international choreographers, World Passions will please audiences with its contrasts and display the versatility of the company. The program includes the world premiere of Pino Alosa’s new version of the Petipa classic, Paquita, a quick, bright work with Spanish influence. A set of new works, by rising talents Viktor Plotnikov and Helen Pickett, are at the center of the evening. Plotnikov, a former Principal dancer with Boston Ballet, choreographed Rhyme for the 2008 Night of Stars Gala. Rhyme, a pas de deux set to Chopin, is a play on light and darkness which Plotnikov describes as “telling a poem with two bodies.” Pickett’s world premiere, a passionate, sensual pas de deux, will have Japanese influence. This will be her third commission for Boston Ballet following Etesian and Eventide. World Passions closes with Jorma Elo’s Carmen/Illusions, a stunning revision of the classic, premiered by Boston Ballet in 2006.

The Nutcracker
November 27-December 27, 2009
Music: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Choreography: Mikko Nissinen

Following the opening of The Nutcracker last season, Karen Campbell wrote in The Boston Globe, “The Nutcracker provides a sugar rush into the holiday season. The company’s version of this beloved classic sports vivid, imaginative scenery, captivating special effects, substantive choreography and exquisite dancing.” Mikko Nissinen’s The Nutcracker, features the Company and more than 250 children from Boston Ballet School, hailed last year as “adorable, focused and disciplined” handling serious pattern and partner work with “impressive aplomb.” This holiday tradition has showcased Boston Ballet and Boston Ballet School’s artistry, technique and love for dance for more than 40 years and continues to delight Boston audiences. The cherished Tchaikovsky score will be performed live at the Opera House by the Boston Ballet Orchestra in the newly renovated orchestra pit.

Coppélia – BOSTON BALLET PREMIERE
April 8-18, 2010
Music: Léo Delibes
Choreography: George Balanchine

The light-hearted comedy of George Balanchine’s Coppélia, a Boston Ballet premiere, begins the spring season. Based upon the book by Charles Nuitter, after “Der Sandmann” by E.T.A. Hoffman, this sentimental tale revolves around the life-size dancing doll created by Doctor Coppélius who becomes the source of love troubles for a village swain. The ballet, first choreographed by Arthur St. Léon, was restaged by Marius Petipa and again by Lev Ivanov and Enrico Cecchetti. Balanchine maintained elements from these versions in Acts I and II, creating entirely new choreography for Act III. With this premiere, Boston Ballet joins Geneva Ballet and New York City Ballet, as one of only three companies in the world that have performed this work. Léo Delibes score, called by The New York Times, “a classic of melody, orchestration, rhythm, and storytelling,” is at once lively and accessible. With more than 20 children from Boston Ballet School, Coppélia remains a jubilant and melodic triumph.

Ultimate Balanchine
May 6-16, 2010

The Four Temperaments
Music: Paul Hindemith
Choreography: George Balanchine

Apollo
Music: Igor Stravinsky
Choreography: George Balanchine

Theme and Variations
Music: Peter Ilych Tchiakovsky
Choreography: George Balanchine

Boston Ballet presents the crown jewels of choreographer George Balanchine’s work with Ultimate Balanchine, featuring The Four Temperaments, Apollo and Theme and Variations. The Four Temperaments, choreographed in 1946, is a ballet divided into themes: Melancholic, Sanguinic, Phlegmatic and Choleric. The Four Temperaments features Balanchine’s signature invention, a fusion of traditional and contemporary movement, which would become a new language in dance. In summer 2007, Boston Ballet toured The Four Temperaments before international audiences in Spain receiving critical acclaim. Apollo, originally choreographed in 1928 for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, marked the beginning of a lasting and significant relationship between Balanchine and Stravinsky. The work, one Balanchine regarded as milestone in his career, centers around the young god of music who is visited by three muses. Theme and Variations, set to Tchaikovsky, received its premiere in 1947. A spectacular, glittering work, Theme and Variations evokes the purity and beauty of the classics. Boston Ballet continues to develop and expand its Balanchine repertoire and was recently hailed by The New York Times for the 2009 production of Jewels.

Black and White
May 20-30, 2010

No More Play
Music: Anton Webern
Choreography: Jiří Kylián

Petite Mort
Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Choreography: Jiří Kylián

Sarabande
Music: Johann Sebastian Bach
Choreography: Jiří Kylián

Falling Angels
Music: Steve Reich
Choreography: Jiří Kylián

Sechs Tänze
Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Choreography: Jiří Kylián

Black and White, a program by Jiří Kylián, one of the world’s most fascinating and celebrated choreographers, returns to Boston Ballet for a second season in an unprecedented move by Nissinen. The five-ballet program made its Boston premiere in February 2009, providing audiences with a view into Kylián’s unique and potent vision. Black and White made company history by exceeding sales goals a day before opening and making Boston Ballet the first company outside the Nederlands Dans Theater to perform the full program. Dance critic Thomas Garvey wrote, Black and White was “a triumph; a must-see; a dance that brings the audience to its feet, cheering. And then sets the crowd to thinking.” Black and White includes a dynamic range of works. No More Play, a study in contrasts, is at once somber and light, engaging and introspective. Petite Mort, a visual stunner, incorporates artistic swordplay set to Mozart. Sarabande, a powerful work for ten men, and Falling Angels, a mesmerizing, patterned dance for women balance each other. Sechs Tänze, a light, madcap romp concludes the evening with energy and Kylián’s unique wit. The Phoenix raved, saying “the energy was palpable everywhere. The [theater] was full and the curtain calls were enthusiastic. So much for the notion that Boston is interested only in classical story ballets.”

2009-2010 Season Tickets
New subscriptions for the 2009-2010 season go on sale April 21, 2009. Tickets for The Nutcracker go on sale July 13, 2009. Tickets for the 2009-2010 season go on sale August 31, 2009. All 2009-2010 tickets may be purchased through Boston Ballet by phone at 617.695.6955 or in person at the box office at 19 Clarendon Street, Boston, Mon–Fri, 9am-5pm and Sat, 11am-6pm (Sat hours Sept–May only). Subscriptions and all tickets will be available for sales online 24 hours a day at www.bostonballet.org beginning in mid-August. Prices for season ballets and Night of Stars start at $25. Prices for The Nutcracker start at $35. Discounted group tickets (10 or more for season ballets and 20 or more for The Nutcracker) are available by calling Boston Ballet’s Group Sales at 617.456.6343. Contact the Boston Ballet Box Office at 617.695.6955 or visit www.bostonballet.org for details.