Agon (ballet)

See also: List of New York City Ballet repertory and NYCB 2008 Spring Repertory

Agon
Choreographer	George Balanchine
Music	Igor Stravinsky
Premiere	1 December 1957 City Center of Music and Drama, New York
Original ballet company	New York City Ballet
Genre	Neoclassical ballet
Type	classical ballet

Agon (1957) is a ballet for a twelve dancers, with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by George Balanchine. Composition began in December 1953 and concluded in April 1957; the music was first performed on June 17, 1957 in Los Angeles conducted by Robert Craft, while the first stage performance was given by the New York City Ballet on December 1, 1957 at the City Center of Music and Drama, New York. The composition's long gestation period covers an interesting juncture in Stravinsky's composing career, in which he moved from a diatonic musical language to one based on twelve-tone technique; the music of the ballet thus demonstrates a unique symbiosis of musical idioms. The ballet has no story, but consists of a series of dance movements in which various groups of dancers interact in pairs, trios, quartets etc. A number of the movements are based on 17th-century French court dances – saraband, galliard and bransle. It was danced as part of City Ballet's 1982 Stravinsky Centennial Celebration‎

Instrumentation

Agon is scored for a large orchestra consisting of piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones (2 tenor, 1 bass), harp, piano, mandolin, timpani, tom-tom, xylophone, castanets, and strings.

Original cast

• Todd Bolender
• Barbara Milberg
• Barbara Walczak
• Roy Tobias

• Jonathan Watts
• Melissa Hayden
• Diana Adams
• Arthur Mitchell

Further reading

• Joseph, Charles M., Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention
• White, Eric Walter, Stravinsky: the composer and his works

External links

• NYCB website

• George Balanchine Foundation website

• The Bransles of Stravinsky's Agon : A Transition to Serial Composition By Bonnie S. Jacobi