Rarely has a premiere by the Vienna State Ballet polarized audiences as much as the European premiere of the two-act ballet Kallirhoe by Alexei Ratmansky. Aram Khachaturian's powerful, effective, and loud music, including the world-famous Sabre Dance, is a perfect template. It was close to Ratmansky's heart. The music director of the premiere company, American Ballet Theatre (ABT), Ormsby Wilkins, championed Khachaturian because he had written Armenian music with oriental influences—a fitting choice for the plot of Kallirhoe, which takes place in Syracuse, Miletus, and Babylon. The British composer Philip Feeney incorporated into the stormy score lyrical passages from the Children's Albums and a Gayaneh Adagio, which the composer himself had reused in another suite.
Despite this important ...
