Carl Davis' ballet The Great Gatsby, choreographed by Jorden Morris, begins a run of eight performances on 30 January 2026 at Colorado Ballet – finally making its debut at the Theatre after cancellation during the Pandemic. Adam Flatt conducts Davis’ 2019 score, which captures both the ebullience of the Roaring Twenties and the destructive, obsessive aura surrounding Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of tragic excess. Davis previously composed acclaimed film music for a television adaption of The Great Gatsby in 2000.
Davis’ music was described as “sweepingly cinematic” (Pittsburgh Gazette) at its premiere. “I wanted this ballet to sound like an expensive Broadway musical of the period” Davis has said. The score reflects his chameleon-like grasp of various musical idioms: “A small group of strings but plenty of saxes, pinging brass and holding it together that jazz beat and the throb of the Blues…I also wanted to pay tribute to the popular dances of the day: sentimental waltzes, the Argentine tango and Paso Doble, Foxtrots and above all, the Charleston.”
The Great Gatsby premiered at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, choreographed by Morris, in 2019. Davis’ score was recorded in 2021 on The Carl Davis Collection, with the composer himself conducting the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. It previously appeared at Orlando Ballet in spring 2022, conducted by Julian Pellicano.
Howard Quintero’s production of Davis’ Alice in Wonderland – an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s topsy-turvy story that debuted with Portugal’s Companhia Nacional de Bailado in 2021 – makes its Slovenian debut in April 2026 at the SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana.
A ballet ‘after Tchaikovsky’, Davis mined numerous works from the Russian composer’s output for the 100-minute score. As well as piano and chamber music, Davis turned to Tchaikovsky’s incidental music for Hamlet for its fanfares and marches, the seldom-performed opera The Maid of Orleans and his symphonic fantasy on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Since its 1995 premiere with English National Ballet, it has received over 150 performances worldwide, including visits to Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Hong Kong’s Grand Theatre with English National Ballet, and, most recently, in 2023 in the Hague with De Dutch Don’t Dance Division, in an MC Escher-inspired choreography by Rinus Sprong.