Artists show many facets of a gem
By Clement Crisp for The Financial Times


The Paris Opéra Ballet has just finished a run of performances of Balanchine's Joyaux - the ci-devant Jewels - and now takes this production on tour to Japan. I had missed its initial appearance at the Palais Garnier two years ago, and I report on the staging rather late in the day, but with delight undiminished.

Balanchine's tribute to three jewels, to three nations, to three styles - the gently romantic France of Gabriel Fauré; the Broadway pizzazz he discerned in the energies of Stravinsky's piano Capriccio; the luminosities and diamond glitter of the Mariinsky ballets he grew up with, and found again in Tchaikovsky's third symphony - has become in recent years hugely popular.

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