Graduation Ball is a ballet in one act choreographed by David Lichine to music composed by Johann Strauss II and arranged by Antal Doráti. With a scenario devised by Lichine and with scenery and costumes designed by Alexandre Benois, it was first presented by the Original Ballet Russe at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, Australia, on 1 March 1940.[1]
The ballet is set in a fashionable Viennese finishing school for girls during the 1840s. The headmistress has invited the cadets of the city's military academy to attend a ball celebrating the graduation of the senior class. The senior and junior girls have planned a series of divertissements as the evening's entertainment and are greatly excited by the event. Flirtations, exuberant dances, and a secret romance ensue.
- ^ Vincent García-Márques, "Graduation Ball," in The Ballets Russes: Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, 1932–1952 (New York: Knopf, 1990), pp. 258–65. Includes a detailed description of the origins and subsequent history of the ballet.