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The Arts Intel Report

Jewels

Mira Nadon and the New York City Ballet in “Rubies,” the second movement of George Balanchine’s Jewels.

Sept 19–24, 2023
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023, United States

Here is one of the greatest full-length ballets of all time, and it doesn’t tell one story but many. George Balanchine’s Jewels, choreographed in 1967, has three acts—“Emeralds,” “Rubies,” and “Diamonds”—that provide three takes on classical style, respectively French, American, and Russian. But more than that, it’s a tapestry interwoven with allusions to ballet’s ondines, firebirds, swans, and steeds. In “Diamonds” there’s even a unicorn, but you must have eyes to see it. (Balanchine loved the Cluny tapestries in Paris and was familiar with the Unicorn Tapestries at the Met Cloisters, in upper Manhattan.) Jewels is a glittering bestiary of romantic love, and the gems are the ballerinas who dance it. —Laura Jacobs