La Valse

The stage is a dark and mysterious ballroom in which thirty-four dancers waltz in flowing romantic tutus to the powerful and disturbing music of Ravel. La Valse, a neo-romantic ballet choreographed by Balanchine in 1951, projects a mood of impending doom. Ravel wrote of the score, Valses Nobles: “We are dancing on the edge of a volcano,” and dance critic Arlene Croce wrote that the ballet “is about waltz intoxication, vertigo, and death.”

Although Balanchine’s ballet is considered plotless, it contains many dramatic elements that culminate with the appearance of a dark figure of Death who claims the life of a young woman dressed in white as the horrified on-lookers swirl about her upraised body. The girl in La Valse was the signature role of Tanaquil LeClercq whose career was tragically brought to a close when she contracted polio – a macabre parallel to the fate of the character whose death she danced so movingly.