State Street Ballet dancers perform “Scheherazade.” (Photo provided)
State Street Ballet, Santa Barbara’s premier and only professional dance company, will host a celebratory gala to kick off its 30th anniversary on Saturday, September 28th at 5pm on the grounds of the Music Academy of the West, 1070 Fairway Road in Montecito.
“This lavish evening, held on the beautiful grounds of the Music Academy of the West, will include a welcome cocktail hour, select ballet and opera performances in Hahn Hall, paddle raises on pointe and a three-course dinner under the stars,” State Street Ballet said.
Like most events called galas, it is partly a fundraiser, but performing arts organizations have a distinct advantage in fundraising because they get an immediate financial return in the form of an enjoyable performance, unlike political or organizational fundraisers, where the value of the donation must be its own reward.
“Our season-opening double feature of ‘Scheherazade’ and ‘The Firebird’ will be a multi-sensory event, a special feast for the eyes, ears and taste buds,” the dance company said.
The pairing of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic fantasy Scheherazade, Op. 35 (1888) with Igor Stravinsky’s first great ballet, The Firebird (1910), is particularly happy and highly moving.
Stravinsky studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov from 1902 until the latter’s death in 1908, and their relationship is one that displays both musical compatibility (Stravinsky generously praised Korsakov’s influence on his own compositions) and psychological incompatibility.
Stravinsky was a devout and staunch Christian, while Korsakov was an atheist (so much so that Stravinsky said in interviews that his teacher’s atheism hindered the depth of his art, while Korsakov often mocked Stravinsky about his faith, which, to this writer at least, reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s mocking of T.S. Eliot’s Christian faith).
Indeed, when it came to religion, Korsakov was rather unusual among composers: in my research, very few composers ignored God altogether.
I believe this is not only because churches are always recruiting, but also because they find their talent so mysterious and powerful that they superstitiously attribute it to God rather than to DNA (I think this is why most of the great musicians I know have striven to look like average, normal people).
As far as I know, Korsakov never composed a ballet, and although Stravinsky composed many great works in many genres, he is primarily celebrated as the composer of the ballets The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring.
Scheherazade was not adapted into a ballet until two years after the composer’s death (4 June 1910), when it was performed by the Ballets Russes at the Opรฉra Garnier in Paris, with choreography by Michel Fokine and a libretto by Fokine and Lรฉon Bakst.
Exotic, sensual, dominated by Nijinsky’s masculine power and overtly sexual, the work revolutionized ballet at the time, elevating male dancers from mere agents of lifting and catching the female dancers during their leaps to equal roles.
According to information from potential donors, tickets to the gala start at $300, with no real cap.
For reservations or more information, call 805-845-1432 or visit https://statestreetballet.com/gala-rsvp .