American Ballet Theatre will pay tribute to celebrated ballerina Alicia Alonso and revive Natalia Makarova’s production of La Bayadère during its spring season at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, May 17-July 10.

Also, John Neumeier’s Lady of the Camellias (1978) will be given its company premiere May 25, with Julie Kent as Marguerite and Roberto Bolle as Armand; eight performances are scheduled from May 25 to June 7.


The season’s eight performances of La Bayadère, May 18-24, mark the 30th anniversary of Makarova’s staging of the complete three-act ballet. Other full-length ballets for spring include Don Quixote, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet.

Alonso’s 90th birthday will be marked by a special performance of Don Quixote June 3 with three principal casts dancing one act each: Paloma Herrera and Marcelo Gomes in Act I, followed by Xiomara Reyes and Herman Cornejo and finally Natalia Osipova and Jose Manuel Carreño.

The company’s all-Frederick Ashton program includes Birthday Offering, The Dream, the Awakening Pas de Deux from The Sleeping Beauty, and Thaïs Pas de Deux. An all-American program features Twyla Tharp’s The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Paul Taylor’s Company B, and Jerome Robbins’ Fancy Free. The latter work also is included in a separate program with Tharp’s The Brahms-Haydn Variations and Alexei Ratmansky’s On the Dnieper.

Tickets to a Memorial Day matinee performance of Don Quixote on May 31 are specially priced from $20 to $95. For more information, visit www.abt.org. For tickets to the opening night gala May 17, call 212.477.3030, extension 3239.