NYCB Vol. 15 No. 17 - Midsummer Night's Dream

On Balanchine’s Act II pas de Deux in Midsummer Nights Dream: “But brief as it was, the change from many dancers to just two gave a focus; suddenly the final dangerous supported falls made contact with the audience; a retard, an absorbing image.”

“The moment or image, ingenuously tender and noble, serious, had been the only absorbing one of the divertissement. The sweet Mendelssohn symphony develops very little drama, and so does its pas de quatorze. The number is more ornament than drama.” —Edwin Denby

Conrad Ludlow and Violette Verdy. Photo by Fred Fehl, 1961