“Emeralds,” the first act of Jewels, a three-act plotless ballet by George Balanchine. This act, set to the music of Gabriel Fauré, is performed by St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Ballet. The soloists are Ulyana Lopatkina, Igor Zelensky, Irina Golub, Andrian Fadeyev, and Zhanna Ayupova and the orchestra is conducted by Tugan Sokhiev. Balanchine was a member of the Mariinsky Ballet before defecting from the former Soviet Union to the West in 1924:
(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)