The image of the firebird is one of the best known in ballet: a ballerina in a fantastical costume of glitter and feathers soaring through space in split leaps. The firebird most people have in mind, unconsciously or not, is Maria Tallchief, for whom George Balanchine created a dazzling version of the Stravinsky score in 1949. But Balanchine was not Stravinsky's first collaborator. In 1910 the composer and Choreographer Michel Fokine had worked out their conception at the piano.
The American Ballet Theater has gone back to...
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