Four Bagatelles is a short, plotless ballet Jerome Robbins made for New York City Ballet, set to a sequence of Beethoven's piano bagatelles — the only time Robbins worked with Beethoven's music. It premiered on 10 January 1974 at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, with Gelsey Kirkland and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux in the leading roles.
What is danced
The article does not describe the choreography, steps or partnering — it gives only the music (Bagatelles Op. 33, Nos. 4, 5, and 2, performed in that order, followed by Bagatelles Op. 126, No. 4), the premiere details, and the original two-person cast of Gelsey Kirkland and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux. That casting of a single ballerina and danseur points to the piece being built around a duet, but nothing in the source specifies vocabulary, holds, or technical demands, so no movement description can be given from this article alone.
Context
No context beyond the bare premiere facts is given in the article: the date, the venue, and that this was Robbins' one ballet to Beethoven. Anything about the broader NYCB repertory climate of 1974 or Robbins' working methods at that time would be drawn from outside knowledge, not from this source.
Staging history
The article records that the ballet was revived for the 2008 Spring Jerome Robbins celebration, but gives no further performance history, no note on whether it entered other companies' repertories, and no detail on how staging or cast changed between 1974 and 2008.
How to watch it
The article supplies no performance description, so there is no sourced guidance on what to watch for in the choreography itself; a viewer would need to attend the piano bagatelles' brevity and the two-dancer premiere cast as the only concrete anchors the record gives.
Credits
- composer: Ludwig van Beethoven