La Sonnambula (Balanchine)

La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker) is a ballet by the co-founder and ballet master of New York City Ballet, George Balanchine, made to Vittorio Rieti's music using themes from the operas of Vincenzo Bellini including La Sonnambula, Norma, I Puritani and I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1830–35).

The ballet premiered as The Night Shadow with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo on Wednesday, 27 February 1946, at City Center of Music and Drama, New York, with sets and costumes designed by Dorothea Tanning and costumes executed by Karinska. It was first performed by the New York City Ballet on 6 January 1960 at City Center of Music and Drama.

The ballet tells the story of a Coquette, a Poet, and a beautiful Sleepwalker. The original 1946 program describes the story as follows: "Amid the somber walls of a decaying castle a masked ball has just begun. The host, an eccentric nobleman, receives his guests, among them a poet and a dazzling coquette. The poet, seduced by her charms, dances with her as the guests gradually leave the scene, then she too leaves.  As the poet turns to follow, he sees a lovely white apparition gliding across the roofs toward him.  It comes nearer and he sees that it is a beautiful somnambulist.  He loses his heart to her at once, unaware that she is married to the host who keeps her locked away from the world.  They dance, and he sees to join her in her realm of dreaming sleep.  But they are seen.  The coquette, flushed with jealousy, steals out to tell the host....All too soon the marvelous sleep-walker drifts away.  The poet would follow her but the guests reenter and their dancing forms a barrier. Finally, he breaks through and disappears but the host follows too and stabs him. As he lies unconscious among the terrified guests the white figure of his love appears once more, gently raises him and together they glide away."

The ballet was renamed La Sonnambula in 1961, and has been revived numerous times.

Original cast

 * Alexandra Danilova
 * Maria Tallchief
 * Ruthanna Boris
 * Frederic Franklin
 * Leon Danielian
 * Marie-Jeanne
 * Nicholas Magallanes
 * Michel Katcharoff

Reviews

 * John Martin, "BALANCHINE DANCE IN WORLD PREMIERE; 'Night Shadow' Introduced by Ballet Russe at City Center --Music From Operas", New York Times, 28 February 1946
 * Allen Hughes, "Ballet: 'La Sonnambula'; City Troupe Adds a Balanchine Dance to Repertory at State Theater", New York Times, 7 January 1965
 * Alastair Macaulay, Four Distinct Dream Worlds, Sharing the Same Language of Classical Ballet, New York Times, 19 January 2008
 * Deborah Jowitt, review, Village Voice, 5 February 2008