Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

New York City Ballet

Mira Nadon and Aaron Sanz in the last ballet Jerome Robbins choreographed—Brandenburg.

May 16–28, 2023
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023, United States

Our last masterpiece from Jerome Robbins is to my mind Ives, Songs (1988). To that most American composer, Charles Ives, whose work is rooted in the Eastern seaboard and shot with shards of darkness and strangeness, Robbins produced a perfect, poignant farewell. But it was the music of Bach he listened to on his deathbed, and it was to Bach that he choreographed his last ballet, Brandenburg, which premiered in 1997. This lovely piece shares the program with Agon and Fancy Free (Robbins’s first masterpiece!)—May 23 and 27 (matinee and evening). Also programmed in the last two weeks of the season are Balanchine’s Swan Lake—not evening length but a one-act tone poem—and Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Justin Peck’s recent full-length work to episodes from Aaron Copland’s great dance scores is also scheduled. —Laura Jacobs