Matters Of The Heart

Immerse yourself in love’s many aspects. Balanchine so loved Glazounov’s score for Raymonda that he created the sweepingly romantic and virtuosic display of technique that opens this program. Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, The Steadfast Tin Soldier finds first love under the Christmas tree with a mischievous paper doll ballerina. Passion’s fickle and all-consuming sides will break your heart in Christopher Wheeldon’s poignant staging of Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose. Both the despair and heights of a love that transcends time are revealed in the Robert Schumann piano pieces that inspired the program’s final work, Robert Schumann’s “Davidsbündlertänze.”