WORLD PREMIERE TIMING: 25:00

A TIME THERE WAS

Choreography by Gemma Bond

Music by (“Suite on English Folk Tunes,” “Fugue and Finale from ‘Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge’”)

Costumes by Sylvie Rood

Lighting by Serena Wong

A ballet for 15 dancers, A Time There Was is set to Benjamin Britten’s Suite on English Folk

Tunes: “A Time There Was,” Op. 90, for , written in 1974, and Britten’s “Fugue and Finale” from “Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge,” composed in 1937. The Suite on English Folk Tunes received its premiere in June 1975 at Snape Maltings Concert Hall at the . In five parts, Britten uses two English folk tunes per movement. The suite incorporates an earlier piece, “Hankin

Booby,” written for the opening of Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in 1967. The music is vividly orchestrated and highly expressive, varied in tone from the spirited folk-fiddling of the “Hunt the

Squirrel” movement to the mournful quality of the final piece, “Lord ,” which bears a mood of resignation, a poignant melody slipping away at the end. The work was dedicated to the memory of Percy

Grainger, the eminent Australian composer. Britten’s Suite on English Folk Tunes is one of his last works.

By contrast, “Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge” is a bravura composition written by

Britten at age 24 as homage to his revered composition teacher Frank Bridge. The work was commissioned by the Boyd Neel Orchestra for performance at the 1937 Salzburg Festival. Its “Fugue and

Finale” form its brilliant conclusion.

(more)

SYNOPSIS – Page 2

Suite on English Folk Tunes: “A Time There Was,” Op. 90 (1974) Movements 1. Cakes and Ale 2. The Bitter Withy 3. Hankin Booby 4. Hunt the Squirrel 5. Lord Melbourne 6. Fugue and Finale from Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937)

A Time There Was takes its title from the opening line of Thomas Hardy’s poem

“Before Life and After” (1928):

A time there was—as one may guess And as, indeed, earth’s testimonies tell— before the birth of consciousness, When all went well.

The ballet is inspired by Britten’s long association with Hardy’s words, his dedication of the score to

Percy Grainger, the lyrics of the traditional English folk carols themselves, and the composer’s own confrontation with mortality and imminent death – the suite was his last work for chamber orchestra. It revels in the marriage of the technical nuance of the score with the language of classical ballet, setting the tone for this suite of impressions and meditations on the joys and perils of our contemporary lives fully lived:

And primal rightness took the tinct of wrong: Ere nescience shall be reaffirmed. How long, how long?

A Time There Was received its World Premiere by American Ballet Theatre on

October 23, 2019 at the David H. Koch Theater, New York, performed by Isabella Boylston, Devon

Teuscher, Cassandra Trenary, James Whiteside, Thomas Forster and Cory Stearns.

###