Jacques d'Amboise: "To this day, I consider Todd Bolender among the greatest dance artists I've ever seen on the stage, not just for The Four Temperaments, but in every role I saw him perform. His genius was in giving full value to every gesture of the dance, as if it were the only movement he would ever make, the beginning and end of the universe. Each movement, Todd imbued with drama and theater, as if the music and gestures contained dialogue, silent words holding secrets

Edwin Denby: "The Ballet Society, New York's new subscription organization for producing ballet and opera, opened with startling brilliance on November 20, presenting to its subscribers Ravel's one-act opera The Spellbound Child, and a new Balanchine ballet, The Four Temperaments. "The audience, an experienced one, welcomed the executants and welcomed The Four Temperaments in particular as a novelty of extraordinary fascination and power. In its flavor The Four Temperaments

The original costumes for The Four Temperaments did not last long. The ballet premiered in 1946 and the costumes were discarded in 1951. Today the ballet is performed in black leotard and skin-toned tights. In this post I have gathered all of the photos I can find of the original costumes in order of appearance in the ballet, listed with the original principals dancers of each section. "Tchelitchev suggested Kurt Seligmann, an erudite painter with a big library of alchemy and

“On closing night, August 19, the company had a full house despite the heat, and an enthusiastic and demonstrative audience. It was a...

On The Four Temperaments: “When, in the opening statements of the ballet—the first part of the Theme—we see a girl, supported on her...

In the late 1930s, Balanchine had extra money from his work on Broadway and in Hollywood and used it to commission Paul Hindemith to...

“In many ways, the stars of 'Kammermusik' are the eight men in the corps. They have the first word and the last. […] The point about...

“Here they are, outstanding simply because they have been malleable to genius.” This is how Anna Kisselgoff, described Colleen Neary,...