The ballet adaptation of Abbé Prévost’s novel L’Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut shows Sir Kenneth MacMillan at his very finest, attesting as it does to his profound insight into human psychology, choreographic craft and narrative skill. The artist admirably expresses the power of fateful love in the central characters’ impassioned duets.

L'Histoire de Manon

State Opera

Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966) is Balanchine’s very first abstract work. The choreographer used to say that chamber music was not suitable for large-scale ballets, since chamber pieces are usually “too long, with too many repeats, and are meant for small rooms”. Back in the 1930s, Arnold Schoenberg orchestrated Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, voicing similar dissatisfaction. In a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle music critic Alfred Frankenstein, he explained the reasons for having done so: “1. I like the piece. 2. It is seldom played. 3. It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything, and this I achieved.” Balanchine opted for Schoenberg’s version. His Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet is a dynamic one-act ballet for 55 dancers in four parts (in line with the four movements of Brahms’s quartet), each possessing a particular mood, style and charge.

Who cares?

The Hungarian choreographer and former Artistic Director of Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf, Youri Vámos, was inspired by Charles Dickens’s fairy tale and introduced a new staging version of this ballet. The story takes place in 19th-century London and tells of the magic of Christmas in transforming human character.

The Nutcracker – A Christmas Carol

National Theatre Prague

Coppélia tells a story of love, yet, unlike other Romantic ballets, in which unrequited passion leads to death, it ends happily (with marriage, thus complying with the 19th-century conventions).

Coppélia

John Neumeier, the legendary American choreographer who for half a century helmed the Hamburg Ballett, based his Liliom on Ferenc Molnár’s 1909 eponymous play. He was the first to have created a dance adaptation of the work, depicting a tragic love story, set in the milieu of US fairs in the 1930s.

Liliom

The renowned Italian choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti created Scheherazade for the Czech National Ballet, in tandem with Carlo Cerri, his long-term collaborator. Based on the famous Middle Eastern story, the full-length ballet features a mesmerising, diverse dance idiom, and overwhelming visual dimensions. Mauro Bigonzetti, long-standing artistic director of the Aterballetto, Reggio Emilia, is a great modern dance innovator, one of the world’s most feted ballet creators and a sensitive storyteller. Blending contemporary and classical elements, he reveals and depicts the beauty of the human body almost like a sculptor, yet his works are far from academic. Bigonzetti has previously worked with the Czech National Ballet on three occasions. In 2016, Prague staged to great acclaim his Vertigo; in 2019, the Estates Theatre hosted the world premiere of Kafka: The Trial; and in the 2023/24 season, the State Opera presented his choreography to Franz Schubert’s Death and the Maiden within the unique project Holo Harmonies.

Aya Okumura

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 2 - Dec 5, 2026

L'Histoire de Manon · Národní divadlo

Oct 27 - Nov 7, 2026

Who cares? · Národní divadlo

9 - 25 Dec, 2026

The Nutcracker – A Christmas Carol · Národní divadlo

23 - 30 Jan, 2027

Coppélia · Národní divadlo

Mar 20 - May 5, 2027

Liliom · Národní divadlo

Future and recently performed repertoire

Confidants in Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov

Národní divadlo

Swanilda in Coppélia by Delibes

Národní divadlo

Clara Cratchit / Clara in dream in The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky

Národní divadlo

Lescaut´s Mistress in L'Histoire de Manon by Massenet

Národní divadlo

Manon in L'Histoire de Manon by Massenet

Národní divadlo

About

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