George Balanchine

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Lore & Background

Balanchine was born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, son of Georgian opera singer and composer Meliton Balanchivadze, one of the founders of the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre. His mother, Maria Nikolayevna Vasilyeva, is said to be the daughter of Nikolai von Almedingen, a German. She was fond of ballet and viewed it as a form of social advancement. As a child, Balanchine was not particularly interested in ballet, but his mother insisted that he audition with his sister Tamara. At age nine, he relocated from rural Finland to Saint Petersburg and was accepted into the Imperial Ballet School, where he was a student of Pavel Gerdt and Samuil Andrianov. He graduated in 1921, then enrolled in the Petrograd Conservatory while working in the corps de ballet at the State Academic Theater for Opera and Ballet. While still in his teens, Balanchine choreographed his first work, a pas de deux named La Nuit (1920, music by Anton Rubinstein). In 1923, with Tamara Geva and fellow dancers, he formed a small ensemble that presented Evenings of the Young Ballet.

Reader's Guide

Balanchine's significance lies in his creation of a distinctly American ballet tradition and his development of the neoclassical style. He co-founded the School of American Ballet in 1934 and the New York City Ballet in 1948. His choreography emphasized musicality and plotless ballets with minimal sets and costumes, allowing movement to take precedence. He worked extensively with leading composers such as Igor Stravinsky, and his ballet Apollon musagète (1928), premiered in Paris, is regarded as the original neoclassical ballet. Balanchine described it as 'the turning point in my life'. Due to a serious knee injury, he had to limit his dancing, effectively ending his own performance career, so he decided to focus all his attention on choreography. After Diaghilev's death in 1929, the Ballets Russes went bankrupt. To earn money, Balanchine began to stage dances for Charles B. Cochran's revues and Sir Oswald Stoll's variety shows in London. He was retained by the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen as a guest ballet master. In 1933, without consulting Blum, Col. de Basil dropped Balanchine after one year. Balanchine and Boris Kochno immediately founded Les Ballets 1933, financed by Edward James, a British poet and ballet patron.

Did You Know?

• Balanchine's father, Meliton Balanchivadze, was one of the founders of the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre and later became Minister of Culture of the Georgian Democratic Republic.
• At age nine, Balanchine relocated from rural Finland to Saint Petersburg to attend the Imperial Ballet School.
• His first choreographed work was a pas de deux named La Nuit (1920), set to music by Anton Rubinstein.
• Sergei Diaghilev insisted that Balanchine change his name from Balanchivadze to Balanchine when he joined the Ballets Russes.
• Balanchine described his 1928 ballet Apollon musagète as 'the turning point in my life'.