Serenade marked a turning point for Balanchine. The first ballet he made in America, created on students from the just-aborning School of American Ballet, it has remained a beloved highlight of the repertory ever since, with its haunting imagery and entrancing embrace of the shimmering Tschaikovsky score for strings. Exploring again the dance potential of Greek myth after 1928’s Apollo, Balanchine’s celebrated, intimate collaboration with Stravinsky subsequently brought forth Orpheus. And Balanchine returned to his cherished Tschaikovsky for Theme and Variations, a dazzling display of classical ballet culminating in an elegant polonaise.