Nevada Ballet Theatre Opens With Carmina Burana and Serenade
By Debbie Hall
What happens when music becomes movement?
For Nevada Ballet Theatre, the answer can be as quiet as a single gesture or as enormous as an entire stage filled with dancers, musicians, and voices. The company's 2026-2027 season opens by exploring both possibilities with George Balanchine's Serenade and Nicolo Fonte's Carmina Burana, bringing together choreography, live music, singing, design, and theatrical storytelling. The performances will take place at The Smith Center in three performances: Friday, October 2, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, October 3, at 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, October 4, at 2 p.m.
The pairing is particularly intriguing because the two works demonstrate dramatically different approaches to creativity.
Balanchine's Serenade, set to Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, finds inspiration in the relationship between music and the human body. Fonte's Carmina Burana, meanwhile, embraces the overwhelming theatrical possibilities of Carl Orff's score, creating a world where dancers, orchestra, and chorus become one visual and sonic experience.
Finding Choreography in the Unexpected
Serenade has one of ballet's most fascinating origin stories.
The work began during an evening ballet class in 1934, when Balanchine taught students the difference between studio exercises and onstage presentation. What emerged was not simply a demonstration of technique but the beginning of a work that would become one of the most important pieces in the choreographer's repertoire.
Even accidents became part of the creative process.
A dancer fell. Another student arrived late. Rather than treating those moments as mistakes to be erased, Balanchine incorporated elements of what happened into the choreography.
That history makes Serenade a reminder that creativity does not always arrive fully formed. Sometimes it develops through experimentation, observation, and a willingness to recognize something unexpected and turn it into art.
The finished work unfolds through four movements—“Sonatina,” “Waltz,” “Russian Dance,” and “Elegy”—with Tchaikovsky's music providing the emotional and rhythmic foundation for the dancers.
The Creative Force of Carmina Burana
If Serenade demonstrates the poetry that can emerge from simplicity, Carmina Burana explores creativity on a much larger scale.
Fonte's choreography takes Orff's famous score and transforms it into a theatrical environment where music, movement and visual design are inseparable. The production originally debuted in 2017 as a co-production between Ballet West and Cincinnati Ballet, featuring new choreography, costumes and sets.
Now Nevada Ballet Theatre brings Fonte's interpretation back to Las Vegas.
“We are looking forward to bringing back Nicolo Fonte’s celebrated version of Carmina Burana,” said Artistic Director Roy Kaiser. “This is an extraordinary production that brings together brilliant stagecraft, beautiful music, and unforgettable choreography.”
Orff's score, based on a collection of medieval poems, has become one of classical music's most recognizable works, particularly because of “O Fortuna.” But onstage, the music takes on another dimension.
The dancers become part of the sound.
The Las Vegas Philharmonic, conducted by Eric McAllister, performs the score while the Las Vegas Master Singers provide the massive choral component. Soprano Melissa Heath, baritone Christopher Clayton, and tenor Christopher Puckett also join the production.
The chorus is positioned within a large scenic structure above the dancers, creating an unusual visual composition while surrounding the choreography with the power of live voices and orchestra.
It is a creative collaboration in the truest sense: no single element carries the entire production.
Where Art Forms Collide
That may be the most compelling aspect of Nevada Ballet Theatre's season opener. It is not simply ballet accompanied by music.
It is music becoming movement. Choreography responds to rhythm and emotion. Stage design becomes part of the storytelling. The human voice adds another physical presence to the choreography.
Some of the most exciting artistic experiences happen when creative disciplines collide.
Serenade and Carmina Burana approach that collision from opposite directions. One finds beauty in line, gesture, timing, and the subtle relationship between dancers and Tchaikovsky's score. The other embraces scale, intensity, and spectacle.
Together, they demonstrate just how many ways an artist can respond to music.
For Nevada Ballet Theatre, the opening program also represents a collaboration across Southern Nevada's arts community, uniting the company's dancers with the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Las Vegas Master Singers.
After more than five decades of bringing professional ballet to Las Vegas, NBT begins another season by asking audiences to experience dance not simply as movement, but as a creative conversation between artists.
And sometimes the most interesting part of that conversation is discovering what happens when somebody hears music—and imagines something the rest of us can see.
Tickets for the performances are available by calling The Smith Center box office at 702-749-2000 or visiting www.nevadaballet.org and following on Facebook @NevadaBalletTheatre, Instagram @NVBallet, X (formerly Twitter) @NVBallet and YouTube @NVBallet.
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