Watch the acclaimed production of The Little Mermaid from San Francisco Ballet here on the Great Performances Web site.

Those expecting a simple ballet adaptation of the Disney animated film will be surprised to find a complex and intense portrayal of unrequited love and the resilience of the human spirit.

San Francisco Ballet – the oldest professional ballet company in America – received Neumeier’s rare permission to present the American premiere in March 2010, which was met with ecstatic audience response, and hailed by critics as “mesmerizing” and “moving.” The two-act production features an evocative score by the young Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach which mixes haunting melodic passages with moody undercurrents atonality and dissonance.

Neumeier created the ballet for The Royal Danish Ballet in 2005 to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of Andersen’s birth, and a subsequent Hamburg Ballet version premiered in 2007. Of all the famous writer’s stories, the choreographer chose this one because of its “very particular concept of love,” he says. “Love that is so strong that it can overcome boundaries, that it can transport her to new worlds, although it may seem to be self-destructive—because the Mermaid re-creates herself at the cost of extreme personal pain. But the story teaches us, at the same time, that no matter how strong our love may be, it doesn’t obligate the object of our love to love us in return.”

Neumeier, a Milwaukee-born American who has spent nearly his entire career in Europe, trained in Copenhagen and London and began his dancing and choreographic careers at Stuttgart Ballet. After only six years there, in 1969 he became director of the Frankfurt Ballet, where he caused a stir with his reinventions of classics such as Nutcracker and Romeo and Juliet. Four years later he began his tenure as director and chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet, and in 1978 he founded a school that now supplies more than 70 percent of the company’s dancers. He has created close to 140 ballets for his own company and as a guest choreographer for American Ballet Theatre, the National Ballet of Canada, and throughout Europe. His extensive list of honors includes dance and arts awards from the United States, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Denmark, and several publications.

“We are grateful to our co-partners and sponsors for the opportunity to broadcast this truly unique and dazzling production,” said SF Ballet Executive Director Glenn McCoy. “San Francisco Ballet was very proud to present the United States premiere of John Neumeier’s The Little Mermaid, and we are thrilled that the Company has the opportunity to share it with wider audiences, not only nationally, but worldwide,” added McCoy.

San Francisco Ballet prima ballerina Yuan Yuan Tan (star of past Dance in America SFB productions such as Lar Lubovitch’s Othello and Helgi Tomasson’s Nutcracker) plays the title role.  She found a strong personal connection with the Mermaid, she says, in the character’s pursuit of “unconditional love. People dream about it. And [the Mermaid] tries to pursue it, and fails, but still believes in it.”

Written between the lines of this fable about personal sacrifice was a far more personal dimension—Andersen’s own torment. According to Neumeier, many scholars believe that this story is probably Andersen’s most autobiographical work. The writer had a history of falling in love with women he could not have, and a few men as well. This tale of unreciprocated love could well be his own; shortly before he wrote it he had suffered greatly at the marriage of Edvard Collin, a love interest who did not return his affections. “So in a sense,” Neumeier says, “Andersen’s disappointment [about Collin] is the jumping-off point for The Little Mermaid.”

Neumeier has played on that fact, expanding the ballet’s story to include a representation of Andersen in the character of the Poet. Neumeier didn’t intend to depict Collin specifically; instead, he says “the historical facts inspire and help to create a new Prince.”

Cast: Yuan Yuan Tan (The Little Mermaid); Lloyd Riggins (The Poet); Tiit Helimets (The Prince); Sarah Van Patten (The Princess); Davit Karapetyan (The Sea Witch). Music Director & Principal Conductor: Martin West.

The Little Mermaid from San Francisco Ballet is a production of the San Francisco Ballet Association, NDR/ARTE and THIRTEEN for WNET, in association with BFMI and C Major Entertainment.  It is produced by Judy Flannery and Bernhard Fleischer.  For Great Performances, Joan Hershey is producer; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; and David Horn is executive producer. It was directed for television by Thomas Grimm.  It will be released on DVD and Blu-ray by Naxos.

Major funding for the telecast, which was filmed in May at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House and shot in high definition using eight cameras, is provided by The James Irvine Foundation, Lucy Jewett, Mrs. Jeannik Méquet Littlefield, the Bob Ross Foundation, Fang and Gary Bridge, the Helgi Tomasson Innovation Fund of the San Francisco Ballet Endowment Foundation, and Tim Dattels. Major funding for Great Performances is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, the Starr Foundation, the Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation.

This program – a trio of signature works by the renowned choreographers — will showcase the company’s critically acclaimed performances of Balanchine’s “Square Dance” (music by Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli) and “Western Symphony” (music by Hershy Kay) and Tharp’s “The Golden Section” (music composed and performed by David Byrne).

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From their home base in Miami Beach (and utilizing four performing venues in South Florida), Miami City Ballet – under the leadership of Artistic Director Edward Villella, celebrated its 25th Anniversary Season in 2010-11. More than 88 ballets are featured in its repertory, works created by a roster of world-class choreographers including George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Frederick Ashton, Anthony Tudor and John Cranko as well as such 19th century classics as “Giselle,” “Coppelia” and “Don Quixote.”

Villella is America’s most celebrated male ballet dancer. The artistry and versatility he exhibited during his long career with New York City Ballet (1957 to 1975), and in concert appearances across the United States and Europe and on television, did much to popularize the role of the male in dance. He is associated with many of the greatest roles in the New York City Ballet repertory and has been a leading advocate for the arts in America. In 1985, Villella became the founding artistic director of the Miami City Ballet, which has won worldwide acclaim under his direction.

In January 2009, Villella brought the Company to Manhattan’s City Center for its New York City debut, resulting in standing ovations and rave reviews. “Miami City Ballet made its Manhattan debut on Wednesday night at City Center. To watch it dance Balanchine is to see aspects of his choreography more clearly than with any other company today. Energy; crispness; stretch; dance as a demonstration of music rather than as a response to it; the multidimensionality of the body in space: these basic ingredients of the ballet master’s style shine bright here,” enthused Alastair Macaulay in The New York Times.

In a follow-up review, Macaulay opined, “No company today performs ‘Square Dance’ as well as Miami.”

This summer, the company held its debut season at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris to great acclaim. The Miami Herald reported that the company was rewarded with “regular standing (even screaming) ovations from sold-out audiences filling the 2,500-seaet theater.”

Laura Cappelle in The Financial Times noted, “Square Dance, one of their calling cards, sets the tone. At home in this whirlwind of spirited classical inventiveness and folk references, soloists and corps de ballet alike articulate the music and the choreography as one, striking notes so blissful that the action sometimes seems to stop for a millisecond.”

Miami City Ballet Dances Balanchine and Tharp was directed by Dance in America veteran Matthew Diamond (Balanchine Celebration, The Wrecker’s Ball with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Swan Lake with American Ballet Theatre), and produced by Joan Hershey and Mitch Owgang; for Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer and David Horn is executive producer.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers and PBS. Major program funding is also provided by Jody and John Arnhold.

Introduced by Olympic champion figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, a native of the Bay Area and winner of 2008’s Dancing with the Stars, the production encores in high definition and 5.1 surround sound Sunday, December 12 at 9pm EST (check local listings) on THIRTEEN’s Great Performances on PBS. San Francisco Ballet Music Director and Principal Conductor Martin West conducts Tchaikovsky’s sprightly score.

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Tchaikovsky’s beguiling score is one of the most popular pieces of music ever written. Think “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and “Waltz of the Snowflakes.” Inspired by E.T.A. Hoffman’s 1816 story, The Nutcracker and The Mouse King, it was first proposed to Tchaikovsky by legendary choreographer Marius Petipa as a follow-up to Tchaikovsky’s other successful ballets at Russia’s famed Mariinsky Theatre: Swan Lake (1877) and The Sleeping Beauty (1890). The composer began work on it in 1891.

San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker was recorded on stage in performance at the War Memorial Opera House December 19 and 21, 2007. It is a co-production of San Francisco Ballet and KQED Public Television San Francisco, in association with Thirteen for WNET.ORG. Matthew Diamond (Dance in America’s Emmy Award-winning Swan Lake with American Ballet Theatre; Great Performances’ Crazy for You) directs; Judy Flannery (Great Performances’ A Streetcar Named Desire From the San Francisco Opera) produced. Michael Isip is Executive Producer for KQED.

An expanded version of San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker, featuring additional behind-the-scenes interviews with the production’s creators and a background piece on the 1915 World’s Fair, is available on DVD from Opus Arte/Naxos of America.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers and PBS. Major corporate funding for this telecast was provided by First Republic Bank, a division of Merrill Lynch Bank & Trust, Co., FSB. Special funding for the telecast was provided by Jim and Cecilia Herbert & Family. Additional support was provided by The Flora Family Foundation and members of the San Francisco Ballet’s 75th Anniversary Sponsors Council: major sponsors include the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, The Hellman Family and Yurie and Carl Pascarella; with additional sponsors including Stuart Francis and Diana Stark; Stephen and Margaret Gill Family Foundation; Cecilia and Jim Herbert; George Frederick Jewett Foundation, Lucille Jewett, Trustee; Barbara Ravizza and John Osterweis; Kathleen Scutchfield; The Smelick Family; The Swanson Foundation; Ms. Susan A. Van Wagner; E.L. Wiegand Foundation; Diane B. Wilsey; and Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang.

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Frederick Wiseman, widely praised for his observational documentary films, has had a long and prolific career. His oeuvre includes Titicut Follies, High School, Basic Training, Public Housing, Domestic Violence, and Ballet (on the American Ballet Theater). Critic Philip Lopate has called Wiseman “the greatest American filmmaker of the last 30 years.”

Of his desire to make a film about the Paris Opera Ballet, Wiseman says, “Since movies are about movement, I wanted to make a movie about a group of dancers and choreographers who represent the highest level of achievement in the conscious use of the body to express feeling and thought. I have great admiration for the dancers, choreographers, administrators, and technicians at the Paris Opera Ballet and welcomed this opportunity to film them at work.”

A Zipporah Films, Idéale Audience, Opéra National de Paris Production, in association with THIRTEEN for WNET.ORG, La Danse – Le Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris is directed and edited by Frederick Wiseman, with sound by Wiseman and photography by John Davey, and produced by Pierre-Oliver Bardet, Frederick Wiseman, and Francoise Gazio.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS. Major support for the telecast is also provided by The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.