Sarasota Ballet taps a Balanchine disciple to stage his final major work

Asked to describe choreographer George Balanchine’s ballet, “Mozartiana,” Maria Calegari thinks for a moment and then definitively states, “Masterpiece.”

Calegari knows of what she speaks. She was one of just a few prima ballerinas to star in “Mozartiana” when she was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. The native of Bayside, Queens, joined NYCB when she was 17 in 1974.

She was personally selected by Balanchine, the towering figure in American ballet who founded both NYCB and its academy, the School of American Ballet, with Lincoln Kirstein. 

“My generation worked directly with Balanchine so we are the true source,” Calegari said in an interview.

Calegari has come to town to stage Sarasota Ballet’s premiere of “Mozartiana,” the half-hour ballet considered to be Balanchine’s swan song. Sarasota Ballet Director “Iain (Webb) has admired ‘Mozartiana’ for more than 40 years and he was finally able to bring it to Sarasota,” she says.

Balanchine first choreographed a dance to Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 4, the Russian composer’s orchestration of several short pieces by Mozart, at the beginning of his career with the short-lived Les Ballets 1933 before emigrating to the U.S.

He decided to create a whole new ballet to Tchaikovsky's work nearly 50 years later for the 1981 Tchaikovsky Festival that he choreographed for NYCB prima ballerina Suzanne Farrell. “It is a kind of goodbye,” Calegari says. “There is something very moving in that.” Balanchine died in 1983.

Photo by Steve Caras

“Mozartiana” is one of three ballets that Sarasota Ballet will present in Program Three, “Masters of Movement,” on Dec. 19-20. For balletomanes, this is the most wonderful time of year because Sarasota Ballet takes over the Sarasota Opera House for Program Three, followed by its studio company’s annual production of “The Nutcracker” on Dec. 21-23.

In addition to “Mozartiana,” Program Three includes another Balanchine ballet, Divertimento No. 15, set to music by Mozart. The program finishes with Sir Frederick Ashton’s “Jazz Calendar,” a witty ballet inspired by the English nursery rhyme, “Monday’s Child.” 

Under Webb and his wife, Sarasota Ballet Assistant Director Margaret Barbieri, the company has championed British choreographer Ashton, with whom they both worked during their careers at the Royal Ballet in London. 

Like her husband, former NYCB principal Bart Cook, Calegari works for the George Balanchine Trust in a job known as a “répétiteur.” Says Calegari helpfully, “That means someone who repeats in French.” 

The movements in a dance can be preserved by a notation system or through videos that can be watched on YouTube and elsewhere. But the best way to pass down the knowledge and spirit of a choreographer is by having someone who worked directly with him or her coach the next generation.

Before coming to Sarasota this month, Calegari staged “Mozartiana” for about 10 ballets around the world, from Boston to Paris to Tiblisi, Georgia. Although Balanchine was considered Russian, he was of Georgian descent and the post-Soviet Republic of Georgia is happy to claim him as a native son and present his works.

Although Calegari is quite familiar with the steps in the ballet she has both danced and staged, she says she had to dust off her notes because the last time she was hired as a “répétiteur” for “Mozartiana” was before COVID-19.

In Sarasota, she has been working closely with principal dancers Jessica Assef and Ricardo Rhodes, the leads in “Mozartiana,” which features striking black-and-white costumes borrowed from the Royal Birmingham Ballet. 

Photo by Frank Atura

Rhodes is also the male lead in Program Three’s “Divertimento No. 15,” which was first performed by Sarasota Ballet in 2008 and was staged by George Balanchine Trust répétiteur Sandra Jennings. Jennings came to town before Calegari to tweak “Divertimento,” which Calegari doesn’t stage.

After working with Sarasota Ballet's dancers, it became clear to Calegari that the understudies — Marijana Dominis and Sam Gest —deserved their moment in the spotlight.

“Usually with this short period of time, I would say no second casts, but our seconds are so good that we decided to have them do the matinee,” Calegari says.

Although she and her husband travel extensively, working with companies all over the globe, this is Calegari’s first visit to Sarasota and her first time working with the Sarasota Ballet. She said she is quite impressed with the caliber of the dancers, particularly the children in “Mozartiana.”

The four young dancers are between the ages of 11-13 and train at Sarasota Ballet’s Margaret Barbieri Conservatory under Assistant Education Director Deirdre Miles Burger. 

“The kids are fantastic,” Calegari enthuses, noting that Balanchine loved to have children in his ballets. Besides “Mozartiana,” young dancers are featured prominently in his “Nutcracker” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”