Ballet (music) of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" after the composer's death. In many cases ballets were still short scenes within operas, to enable scenery or costume changes. Perhaps the best-known example of ballet music that is part of an opera is the "Dance of the Hours" from Amilcare Ponchielli's opera "La Gioconda" (1876). There was a violent change in mood when Igor Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring" (1913) was performed. The music was modernist and dissonant, and the movements were highly stylized. In 1924 George Antheil wrote "Ballet Mécanique," which was actually for a film of moving objects, not for dancers, but
The Firebird leader. The lead role was fanced by Michel Denard. The Mariinsky Ballet performed the original choreography at Covent Garden in August 2011, as part of their Fokine retrospective. The National Ballet of Canada created a version of the "Firebird" for television, occasionally rebroadcast, in which special effects were used to make it appear that the Firebird is in flight. On 29 March 2012, the American Ballet Theatre premiered the ballet with choreography by Alexei Ratmansky at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California, starring Misty Copeland. The ballet centers on the journey of its hero, Prince Ivan.