Serenade

A Balanchine Story

By: Toni Bentley

Narrated by: Leslie Howard, Toni Bentley

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Toni Bentley, a dancer for George Balanchine, the greatest ballet maker of the 20th century, tells the story of Serenade, his iconic masterpiece, and what it was like to dance—and live—in his world at New York City Ballet during its legendary era.

"Reading Bentley's Serenade made me feel as alive as I felt on the stage the moment that I fell in love with ballet…. [A] delicate balance of personal memoir, rarefied elegance, history of the arts and pure human interest.”—Misty Copeland, New York Times Book Review

"[A] unique document about one of the greatest ballets ever created…. A beautiful read”—Mikhail Baryshnikov

At age seventeen, Toni Bentley was chosen by Balanchine, then in his final years, to join the New York City Ballet. From both backstage and onstage, she carries us through the serendipitous history and physical intricacies and demands of Serenade: its dazzling opening, with seventeen women in a double-diamond pattern; its radical, even jazzy, use of the highly refined language that is ballet; its place in the choreographer’s own dramatic story of his immigration to the United States from Soviet Russia; its mystical—and literal—embodiment of the tradition of classical ballet in just thirty-three minutes.

Bentley takes us inside the rarefied, intense, and thrilling world Balanchine created through his lifelong devotion to celebrating and expanding female beauty and strength—a world that, inevitably, passed upon his death. An intimate elegy to grace and loss and to the imprint of a towering artist and his transcendent creation on Bentley’s own life, Serenade: A Balanchine Story is a rich narrative by a dynamic artist about the nature of art itself at its most ephemeral and glorious.

©2022 Toni Bentley (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year

“Bentley, who danced under Balanchine’s direction at the New York City Ballet for a decade in the 1970s and 80s, tells a history that is as vivid and poetic as the dance itself . . . Serenade is about more than the making of a single ballet; it is an introspective nod to the life lessons taught through movement . . . I felt the spirit of the movements through Bentley’s descriptive prose. She weaves in impressive detail about the actual technique of ballet, articulating the dancer’s physical experience for the reader . . . Reading Bentley’s Serenade made me feel as alive as I felt on the stage the moment that I fell in love with ballet: with its grounded fantasy, physical demands, intellectual challenge, structure and beauty . . . Serenade is a book that will delight balletomanes for generations to come; but it will also appeal to those newer to the dance world, with its delicate balance of personal memoir, rarefied elegance, history of the arts and pure human interest.” —Misty Copeland, The New York Times Book Review

“Insightful. . . . In endeavoring to conjure the transcendent lyricism of Balanchine’s vision and Tchaikovsky’s score, the book goes further, touching on deeper, stranger ideas about the symbiosis between life and art.” —New Yorker

“Written from the heart as much as the head…Serenade: A Balanchine Story, [Bentley’s] brilliant new book-length meditation on Balanchine’s greatest ballet . . . is ultimately far more interesting than just another cultural history: With her rare combination of access to Balanchine and her genuine literary ability . . . she writes with grace and gratitude . . . It’s [her] personal voice that makes this book consistently engaging, and her enthusiasm is catching . . .Bentley is no longer a young girl, but her love for Balanchine has remained true, and with this splendid account, she has honored an incomparable artistic romance.” —Peter Tonguette, National Review

Incredible story. French pronunciation like nails on a chalkboard!

Toni Bentley’s story is engaging, insightful and fascinating. I love the way she wove the minute by minute explanation of Serenade with the history of ballet, Balanchine, Tchaikovsky, Petipa as well as her own. Her reverence and love for Mr B is truly palpable. I hope to see NYCB dance Serenade soon. The narrator who had a pretty sounding voice, truly disappointed. Her pronunciation of French and Italian words was like nails on a chalkboard! Why oh why, in a book about ballet, no less, did she get the pronunciation of “pas de deux” and many other words, so wrong?

over the top adoration for Balanchine!

Interesting information about the world of ballet. Author adores Balanchine and is not the least bit
objective about him. Her second by second account of Serenade was an interesting literary style. It made the choreography very personal and I felt like I was on stage as a dancer.

Amazingly intimate and authentically researched!

Outstanding writing taking the listener inside the ballet world with specific details from personal experience as well as factual information about dance and music history. Only critique is the person who read the book did not pronounce any of the French words correctly. As a francophone and educator I wish the production team would have considered this important detail.

What a beautiful book!

Simply, I was in tears so many time, I don’t remember anything like it ever. It s like I am finally there, with Balanchine and his devoted dancers, experiencing this brief divine moment …I m not even a dancer, I m just a 61 yrs doctor, happened started ballet at 54, and now taking adv/prof ballet everyday, 7 days a week. Now I know why I wanted to be a ballet dancer at age 10. I never had the chance till now. Balanchine is and will always be God of mine…thank you!