Ballet Palm Beach announces four-ballet 2023-24 season

Ballet Palm Beach has announced its five-program season for 2023-24, which will include standard works as well as an original ballet choreographed by company founder Colleen Smith.

The season opens with "Don Quixote," a ballet set to scenes from the classic 17th-century novel by Spain’s Miguel de Cervantes about a landowner in La Mancha who loses his senses after reading too many stories about the knights of chivalry. Originally choreographed by the legendary Marius Petipa in 1869, the ballet has a score by the Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus. Four performances are set for Oct. 28 and 29 at the Rinker Playhouse on the campus of the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach.

Up next is perhaps the most beloved ballet in the world, "The Nutcracker," which since the 1950s has been a staple of the Christmas season in the United States. Its score by Pyotr Tchaikovsky is one of the best-known of all pieces of classical music, and its story, which involves a nutcracker who comes to life to do battle with the Mouse King, and includes a trip to the Kingdom of Sweets, is pure childhood fantasy of the most endearing kind. Four performances are planned for Dec. 2 and 3 in the Kravis Center’s Dreyfoos Hall.

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Third on the list is "Romeo and Juliet," the Shakespearean tale of forbidden young love and tragedy in 16th-century Italy, set to a memorable score by Sergei Prokofiev. Smith is a great fan of the music for this ballet, and she has choreographed the work with an abundance of busy movement, the company said. The ballet will be presented Feb. 24 and 25 at the Rinker Playhouse; four performances are scheduled.

The final ballet of the season will be "Peter Pan and Tinker Bell," which Smith’s company premiered in 2022. Enamored of the novels of J.M. Barrie, she set this story of the boy who never grew up to music from the Renaissance as well as Italian Baroque master Antonio Vivaldi. Four performances are scheduled for the Rinker Playhouse on April 20 and 21.

Also on the schedule for the Palm Beach Gardens-based ballet company and training school is its annual gala.

This season it is set for Feb. 12 at The Breakers. The theme is “Venetian Masquerade,” and will feature dance performances, a live auction, cocktails and dinner, and “masked merriment for all.” The gala is chaired by Brandie Herbst and Erin McGould, with honorary chair Anka Palitz.

For information about prices and tickets, call Ballet Palm Beach at 561-630-8235 or visit www.balletpalmbeach.org.

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Ballet Palm Beach offers four ballets, gala in upcoming season