From Donizetti to do-si-dos, the classic arts scene in New York is never quiet. Here is just a sampling of some of the classic arts events happening this week.
New York City Ballet's 2025-2026 season opens this week with two all-Balanchine programs celebrating the company's founding choreographer George Balanchine. Opening night will be September 16 with a program of three ballets: Donizetti Variations, set to music from Donizetti's final completed opera Dom Sébastian; Ballade, set to music by Gabriel Fauré; and a one-act version of Tchaikovsky's classic Swan Lake. The second all-Balanchine program will include Square Dance, an American reinterpretation of music by Italian Baroque composers Vivaldi and Corelli; Episodes, an avant-garde work set to music by Anton von Webern; and Western Symphony, set to traditional American folk songs arranged and orchestrated by Broadway orchestrator Hershey Kay.
New York City Center's annual Fall for Dance Festival kicks off September 16 and runs through September 27. The festival comprises five dance programs featuring over a dozen different companies and choreographers around the world including the Stuttgart Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, and the Dutch National Ballet. This year's festival also includes two commissioned works, by Roderick George and Clara Furey.
Gustavo Dudamel, the New York Philharmonic's artistic director designate, will lead the orchestra this week in a concert of two symphonies: Beethoven's iconic Symphony No. 5, and John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1, which premiered in 1990 and is dedicated to the lives lost in the AIDS epidemic. The orchestra will give four performances, running September 18-21 at Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall.
Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo continues to star as opera diva Maria Magdalena Galas in Charles Ludlam’s Galas, at Little Island, running through September 28. Eric Ting directs the 1983 comedy, which is inspired by the life of Maria Callas. The production, running through September 28, also stars Carmelita Tropicana, Mary Testa, Caleb Eberhardt, Erin Markey, Patricia Black, Samora la Perdida, Austin Durant, and Jeremy Rafal.
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