Say that five times in a row 🙂 (
Last Wednesday, my friend Judy and I went to NYCB for their Founding Choreographers II program, which included two by Balanchine — Ballo della Regina, and Robert Schumann’s Davidsbundlertanze (it’ll be a miracle if I don’t misspell it at some point), and Jerome Robbins’s Glass Pieces.
My favorite was the middle one (whose name translates to “Dances of the League of David” — Schumann’s imaginary society of artists organized to combat Philistinism), and it’s becoming one of my favorites of Balanchine’s in general, though many people can’t stand it and think it moves way too slowly. Made in 1980 and one of Balanchine’s last works, it’s meant to depict the mid-19th Century composer Schumann’s relationship with his wife, a pianist named Clara Wieck, and his ensuing mental breakdown, which led to a suicide attempt, followed by institutionalization.
There are four couples who seem to me to depict various stages of the same relationship — one is older and more mature, another is young, hot-headed and full of passion, another frolicking and playful, and the last and most pathos-ridden somewhere in between, full of loving and longing but pockmarked with fateful misunderstandings and missed connections, generally standing I think for the tragic impossibility of true human connection.