About this Piece

George Balanchine’s Jewels, created for New York City Ballet and widely performed by companies worldwide, is a choreographic triptych, a unique combination of styles and music that forms a contrasting, yet complementary, whole. Each segment of what dance critic Arlene Croce has called a “Balanchine primer” reveals a facet of the choreographer’s creativity and evokes a particular time and style of ballet. Seen together, the three mini-ballets produce an evening of dance that builds from the reverie of “Emeralds” through the jazzy dynamism of “Rubies” to the sense of the glory of imperial Russia that is “Diamonds.” Unlike most full-length ballets that tell a story, Jewels’ raison d’être consists of only one thing: dancing.

Balanchine said that his gemstone-themed ballet with jeweled costumes was inspired, in part, by his introduction to jeweler Claude Arpels, whose collection of precious stones he admired. According to Balanchine repetiteur Elyse Borne, who along with Sandra Jennings staged Jewels on San Francisco Ballet, the triptych “is like a nice meal. You’ve got your appetizer, you’ve got your main course, and you’ve got your big dessert at the end, which is ‘Diamonds.’”

The purity of white tutus and rhinestones in “Diamonds,” set largely to the third movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 3, glitters with the power of a large corps de ballet and eight demi-soloists backing a principal couple. If you’ve ever tried to imagine what ballet was like in imperial Russia, you need look no further than “Diamonds.” Yet its impact and power are derived from its softness. “Diamonds” is elegant in an understated way, with fleeting nods to Russian folk dance and ballet’s origins as a court dance, emphasized by heavy drapes masking wings and crystal chandeliers that sparkle against a blue background.

Tchaikovsky wrote his Third Symphony in only a few months during the summer of 1875. As he did in the finale of his Second Symphony, he develops a theme by continually changing its background, perhaps incorporating a technique used by Mikhail Glinka into his own. The composition begins with a measured pace that builds to an allegro section. Then a haunting theme begins the slow pas de deux. The tempo picks up with the scherzo and then, in the finale, the music becomes more expansive as it moves into a polonaise, a dignified court dance that was introduced in Russia in the late 18th century.

Suzanne Farrell, who premiered the ballet, wrote, “There is very little in the way of excitement and glamour that can equal Balanchine and Tchaikovsky in a polonaise.” With the full ensemble moving with precision, their upper bodies upright and formal, the pageantry transports us to that long-ago Russian court. At the end, the principal couple slowly promenades, framed by the corps in ever-changing formations—a moment, Farrell writes, that made her and Jacques d’Amboise feel like “the central stone in a mammoth setting...one of Balanchine’s choreographic jewels.” —Cheryl A. Ossola/San Francisco Ballet