About the performance

A company tradition, the annual New Combinations program illuminates the wealth of diversity in the repertory. This year the program opens with Balanchine’s Walpurgisnacht Ballet, an exhilarating dance highlighting a female cast of two dozen soaring and sweeping across the stage to music from the Gounod opera Faust. An excerpt from Flower Festival in Genzano has become a beloved staple of the international repertory, a joyous and romantic pas de deux exemplifying the fleet, buoyant choreography of the 19th-century Danish master August Bournonville. Jerome Robbins’ Opus 19/The Dreamer finds mysterious and compelling dramatic nuances in its Prokofiev score. The program, which as always is timed to coincide with Balanchine’s January birthday, invariably includes a premiere, in this case the latest ballet from Resident Choreographer and Artistic Advisor Justin Peck.