Estancia, orchestral suite and one-act ballet by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera that, through its references to gaucho literature, rural folk dances, and urban concert music, evokes images of the diverse landscape of the composer’s homeland. The work premiered in 1943 in its four-movement orchestral form and in 1952 as a ballet.
The Estancia ballet, somewhat more than half an hour in length, tells the story of a city boy in love with a rancher’s daughter. At first, the love affair is one-sided, as the girl finds the boy spineless, at least in comparison with the intrepid gauchos. By the final scene, however, the hero has won the girl’s heart by outdancing the gauchos in a traditional contest on their own terrain.
The ballet was commissioned in 1941 by American dance impresario Lincoln Kirstein for the troupe American Ballet Caravan. The work was to have been choreographed by George Balanchine, but the dance company disbanded in 1942, before it was able to perform the piece. Estancia did not premiere as a ballet until after World War II. In the interim, Ginastera extracted four dances from the score—“Los trabajadores agricolas” (“The Land Workers”), “Danza del trigo” (“Wheat Dance”), “Los peones de hacienda” (“The Cattlemen”), and “Danza final (Malambo)”—for use as a concert suite. Estancia is most often heard in its orchestral version, and the concluding movement, inspired by the flamboyant malambo dance of the Argentine gauchos, has become one of Ginastera’s most popular works.