Liebeslieder Walzer is a ballet by New York City Ballet co-founder and ballet master George Balanchine, based on the Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer, op. 52, and their sequel Neue Liebeslieder, op. 65.
Contents
The premier of the ballet took place on Tuesday, 22 November 1960 at the City Center of Music and Drama, New York, with mise en scène by David Hays and costumes by Karinska. The duo pianists were Louise Sherman and Robert Irving and the singers Angeline Rasmussen, Mitzi Wilson, Frank Porretta and Herbert Beattie.
Scenario
The musicians and dancers appear on stage together in period costumes. The dancers wear formal evening dress and the women dancing slippers during the first set of eighteen waltzes in a cozy ballroom; after a brief lowering of the curtain they dance the next fourteen waltzes under a starry sky, the women in calf-length tulle skirts and pointe shoes. They leave the stage two by two and return in pairs in original costume to listen to the last waltz.