Balanchine’s affection for Shakespeare’s scintillating comedy dated to his childhood, when he appeared as an elf in a St. Petersburg production. His abiding love of the play culminated in this 1962 ballet—the first original full-length work he created for the Company—which displayed his often-unheralded gift for characterization. The imperious royals Titania and Oberon, the young lovers caught up in a tangled pursuit of the objects of their affection, and the hilariously bumbling Rude Mechanicals all provided Balanchine with an opportunity to translate Shakespeare’s comic ode to the complexities of love into a joy-filled dance that never fails to delight.