Pillar of Fire (ballet)

Pillar of Fire is a 30-minute dramatic ballet choreographed by Antony Tudor to Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op.

The opening-night cast included Nora Kaye as Hagar, Antony Tudor as the Young man, Hugh Laing as the Man in the house across the way, Lucia Chase as the Eldest Sister, Annabelle Lyon as the Youngest Sister, Maria Karnilova, Charles Dickson, Jan Davidson, John Kriza, Virginia Wilcox, Wallace Seibert, Jean Hunt, Barbara Fallis, Sono Osato, Rosella Hightower, Muriel Bentley, Jerome Robbins, Donald Saddler, Frank Hobi, Balina Razoumova, and Roszika Sabo.

Hagar in desperation gives herself sexually to one of the licentious men, whom she definitely does not love, and who then immediately leaves her abandoned.

The ballet is set in the period around 1900 because it was then that Schoenberg composed its music Verklärte Nacht ("Transfigured Night").

[2] An actual American Ballet Theatre performance, together with spoken brief remarks by Antony Tudor, is available on YouTube.