After Suzanne's 6-year absence from NYCB, the first work Balanchine choreographed on her was Tzigane. The ballet was made in just 6 days during the hectic period of the company's Ravel Festival. Suzanne wrote:
"The company was already full force into the festival when Balanchine, Gordon Boelzner, and I finally got together in a small rehearsal studio to begin Tzigane. [...] I had waited a long time to work with him again, and I wanted to prolong the experience beyond six days. [...] We began at the beginning, and he knew exactly how I would make my entrance--I was to mosey slowly onstage from the back left wing, no steps, no pointe work, no pirouettes, just a kind of sultry, draggy schlep. I was miffed. This was the first ballet George would make on me after six years, and my entrance did not appear to herald any great epiphany. 'Well, he's never let you down. He knows what he's doing,' I quickly cautioned myself."
"In the first hour-and-a-half rehearsal we completed my whole solo, all five long minutes of it. There were many moments that remained vague, where I felt not altogether sure of my footing, but this didn't bother anyone. Mr. B always saw further than what was precisely delivered; he saw the shape of the ballet, and if its edges remained unfinished it didn't matter.
"A ballet's atmosphere evolves, it cannot be carved in stone as long as it remains a musical event.
"It was lonely being out there so long in a single spotlight with a single instrument and no conductor--more lonely even than the diagonal entrance in 'Diamonds'--and I found Peter's appearance most welcome. The lights brightened, the music broadened into a full orchestra, and the four couples came onstage for the finale of the ballet."
—Holding on to the Air by Suzanne Farrell
Photos by Martha Swope, 1975 & 1979.
New York Public Library
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