Choreography: George
Balanchine
Music: Peter I.
Tchaikovsky
George Balanchine made and remade Mozartiana several times in his long career. He first
choreographed the piece for Les Ballets 1933 (the company he formed in Paris with Boris Kochno)
before embarking for America, with revisions in 1935 for the American Ballet, and again for the
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo featuring its stars Alexandra Danilova and Frederic Franklin in the
mid 1940s. For the New York City Ballet’s Tchaikovsky Festival, in 1981, Mozartiana underwent
radical changes from the original productions and is one of the last ballets the choreographer
created before his death in 1983. The piece is a plotless ballet set to the music of Tchaikovsky.
Peter Tchaikovsky studied at the Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia, where Balanchine later
studied piano in addition to his training in dance. Tchaikovsky loved danceable music, particularly
that of Mozart who was one of his favorite composers. The score for Mozartiana, Fourth Suite for
Orchestra, is Tchaikovsky’s treatment of several Mozart compositions.
