Le Chant du Rossignol (The Song of the Nightingale)
Choreography: George Balanchine
Music: Igor Stravinsky
The choreography for Stravinsky’s original ballet suite was created by Léonide Massine (with Henri Matisse designs) for Sergei Diaghilev in 1920 and then revived for Balanchine to recreate in 1925 with fourteen year old prodigy Alicia Markova dancing the title role. This was Balanchine’s first professional work to Stravinsky’s music, which he choreographed when he was twenty-four years of age, having just left the Russian revolutionary avant-garde and the Maryinsky Theatre.