Maria Calegari began her life of dance at the age of four in Bayside, Queens.

In 1974, at the age of seventeen, she was chosen by George Balanchine to join New York City Ballet. Calegari became a principal dancer in 1983 and performed over forty soloist roles in Balanchine’s ballets. Some of her favorites include Agon, Apollo, Symphony in C, Divertimento No. 15, Swan Lake, Mozartiana, The Nutcracker and Serenade. She also worked extensively with Jerome Robbins creating exciting new ballets like Glass Pieces, The Gershwin Concerto and Antique Epigraphs. Other notable choreographers she has worked with include Twyla Tharp, Peter Martins, Helgi Tomasson, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, Robert La Fosse and Bart Cook. Calegari traveled throughout the world with New York City Ballet and has appeared on television in Dance in America and as Titania in Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Since leaving New York City Ballet in 1994, Calegari has appeared in Suzanne Farrell Stages Balanchine and joined the ranks of repetiteurs for the George Balanchine Trust. Calegari has staged works for the Miami City Ballet, Fort Worth-Dallas Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, the Stuttgart Ballet, the Perm State Opera Ballet and the Boston Ballet.

This staging of Mozartiana is Calegari’s first work for American Ballet Theatre.