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( Don Quixote, La Bayadère, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake , created by Marius Petipa for the Russian ballet in the late-ninteenth and early-twentieth centuries), the ballets he choreographed, from the very beginning, had no princes, no swan queens, no lavish sets. Rather, they featured a man, a woman, the dancers surrounding them and the music, which supplied the impetus for every move they made.
    On July 4, 1924, Balanchine left Russia with a troupe of fourdancers including Geva and Danilova, to perform in Germany. From there they went on to England, where Balanchine received a telegram from Serge Diaghilev, the legendary founder and director of the Ballets Russes, inviting him and his company to audition. Within days, they had become part of the Ballets Russes, and Balanchine’s life was changed forever. Years later, he would tell his biographer, Bernard Taper, “It is because of Diaghilev that I am whatever I am today.”
    Five years later, however, on August 19, 1929, Diaghilev died suddenly in Venice, and Balanchine was once more on his own. In what must surely be one of the most serendipitous occurrences of all time, Lincoln Kirstein, a wealthy young American with good connections and great determination, was vacationing in Venice and happened to wander into the church where Diaghilev’s funeral was being conducted. A lover of the arts, especially ballet, Kirstein was already familiar with Balanchine’s ballets. Now, taking this unlikely occurrence as a sign, he decided that he was meant to bring ballet home to America and popularize it.
    He and Balanchine did not actually meet, however, until 1933. In the meantime, Balanchine was freelancing as much as he could and, in the process, becoming increasingly bored and annoyed with European ballet, which he regarded as stale and creatively stifling.
    At that first meeting, arranged by a mutual friend, Kirstein asked Balanchine, “What do you want to do?”
    â€œI want to come to America,” Balanchine said, adding that hewould love to go to a place where there were girls as wonderful as Ginger Rogers.
    â€œI’ll get you to America,” Kirstein promised.
    But Balanchine knew that getting to America was just the beginning. Yes, he would have the artistic freedom he craved and needed, but dancers would be in short supply because, at that time, American dancers were poorly trained.
    So, when Kirstein promised him not only his own company but also his own theater, Balanchine insisted on setting the priorities.
    â€œBut first, a school,” he said.
    The School of American Ballet opened its doors in 1934, a year after Kirstein and Balanchine’s first meeting. Fourteen years after that, New York City Ballet gave its first performance.

ELEVEN
    The 1980–81 City Ballet season began in November, following six weeks of rehearsal, and I finally had my first opportunity to see a Balanchine ballet performed onstage. Deidre and I were determined to see as many performances as we possibly could. Sometimes we bought standing-room tickets, but we couldn’t afford to buy tickets every night, so we came up with a scheme. We would wait until we saw company members entering through the backstage door. Then we’d tag along, hoping that the guard would assume we were among the new dancers Balanchine had picked from our class. Once inside, we’d make our way backstage and out a secret door to the front of the house, where we had to sneak past the usher. The one who looked like a blond witch always knew what we were up to and watched us like a hawk. We hid in the bathroom until the lights went down, and when she was busy seating last-minute arrivals we’d sneak into the theater and find empty seats.
    One night the ballerina dancing Titania, one of the leadingroles in Balanchine’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream , was so breath taking that I was sure she must be the great Suzanne Farrell, whom I had heard so