“It was in 1977, the City Ballet's first performance after a long orchestra strike. The audience booed the musicians as they took their seats in the pit, but as soon as the curtain went up the booing turned to applause. 'We're back,' the line of women seemed to declare in capital letters. As if taking its cue from the boldness of the tableau, the audience clapped louder. The conductor could not give the downbeat because the dancers would not have been able to hear the music. The clapping grew more in-tense. The audience seemed to want to say something, to leave a mark, to stage a demonstration: to shut down the orchestra as it had shut down the dancers? Meanwhile, the dancers were frozen in place. A few began to look into the wings, seeking guidance. The strong stance of the dancers began to falter, but still the audience would not quiet down. There was a stand-off. Then finally, finally, finally, the curtain came down. The demonstration stopped. The curtain went up again, and the ballet began. The episode was exhilarating, troubling, slightly dangerous.” — Nancy Goldner in Balanchine Variations
Photo by Martha Swope, 1983.
New York Public Library
A note from Alastair Macaulay:
"Good to see this. Although this 1983 photograph doesn’t seem significantly different from the usual “Symphony in Three” opening tableau, I testify that it (and the ballet that followed) had a particularly electrifying quality that year, perhaps because every dancer seemed dedicated to the Balanchine mission in the months following his death. I had already thought it a masterpiece in 1979, but in 1983 it acquired a galvanising force whose energy really felt the most powerful thing imaginable. I remember a Covent Garden performance after which I could not sleep till 3am. The next day, one friend told me she had been unable to sleep till 4am, and another (male) till 5am. That kind of energy was what Balanchine was all about, of course, but it was amazing to watch it actually increase after his death, so that many 1983-1987 performances felt like a posthumous Golden Age."
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