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The ballet Serenade – an acclaimed masterpiece of neoclassical choreography – will broaden the dancer’s repertoire; she already performs a solo role in this legendary choreographer’s Symphony in C.
“Many people consider that Serenade has a hidden plot, though this is not in fact true,” as George Balanchine dismissed this popular ballet myth in his book One Hundred and One Stories of the Great Ballets, which he co-wrote with Francis Mason. “In this ballet, the dancers simply move to beautiful music. The ballet’s only plot is the music of the serenade, if you like, it is a moonlit dance.”
The ballet Serenade, the world premiere of which was held in 1935 in New York at the Adelphi Theater, was George Balanchine’s first ballet production in the USA, where soon after he had emigrated the choreographer and Lincoln Kirstein and Edward M. M. Warburg opened the American Ballet School in New York. The choreographic drawing of Serenade emerged gradually, forming the result of evening ballet classes given by the choreographer.
The premiere of Serenade at the Mariinsky Theatre came on 30 April 1998. The production was staged in collaboration with the George Balanchine Foundation by the ballet-mistresses Francia Russell and Karin von Aroldingen.
Anastasia Matvienko’s repertoire includes the roles of Gamzatti in La Bayadère, Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty and the lead role in Jerome Robbins’ ballet In the Night. In autumn 2009 Anastasia Matvienko performed the role of Odette-Odile in the ballet Swan Lake at the theatre for the first time to great acclaim.
Before she joined the Mariinsky Theatre in 2009, the ballerina was previously a soloist with the National Opera of Ukraine and later the Mikhailovsky Theatre, together with which she toured to renowned ballet theatres throughout the world. | 
