New Firebird for ABT

Posted on March 8, 2011

Alexei Ratmansky will create a new production of The Firebird for American Ballet Theatre, it was announced today.

The production, danced to Stravinsky’s score, will have its premiere on March 29, 2012 at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, California. The ballet will have its New York premiere during ABT’s 2012 Metropolitan Opera House season.

Ratmansky, who was named ABT’s artist in residence in 2009, will use the complete Stravinsky score. The production will have scenery by Simon Pastukh and costumes by Galina Solovyeva, the design team who collaborated on Ratmansky’s 2009 ballet On the Dnieper. The new Firebird will be Ratmansky’s fifth ballet for ABT, and his second version of Stravinsky’s score: he has already choreographed a production of The Firebird for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 2002.

Picture: Alexei Ratmansky. Photograph: Fabrizio Ferri.

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.