Ten years ago Robert Weiss arrived in Raleigh as the founding artistic director of Carolina Ballet, the Triangle area's first professional ballet company. He promised to create one of the top ten ballet companies in the country by bringing world-class American ballet to the region.

Since 1997, Weiss has taken the company from a four-ballet subscription series offering 18 performances to a seven-ballet subscription series of 44 performances, plus 15 performances of "Nutcracker" for the 2007-2008 10th anniversary season.

There are several highlights for the 10th season including live music for three of the productions; three world premieres by Robert Weiss; and a family subscription series of fairy tale ballets. The season will run from October to May with the following performances:

-- Oct. 25-28, -- "Carmina Burana," Raleigh Memorial Auditorium (RMA)

-- Nov. 21-25, -- "Cinderella" and "Peter and the Wolf" (premiere), RMA

-- Dec. 14-23, -- "Nutcracker," RMA

-- Jan. 31-Feb. 3, -- "The Waltzes of Old Vienna" (premiere), RMA

-- Feb. 21-March 2, 2008, -- "Balanchine Repertoire," AJ Fletcher Opera Theater

-- March 13-16, 2008, -- "Carolina Jamboree," with the Red Clay Ramblers, RMA

-- April 10-13, 2008, -- "Cabaret," RMA

-- May 15-18, 2008, -- "Sleeping Beauty" (premiere), RMA

In May 2005 Robert Weiss presented a new "Cinderella" to Triangle audiences that broke box office records for the company. It was evident with that production that families were looking for arts entertainment to share with their children, so Weiss has been inspired to create a family program of ballets that will delight young and old alike.

Carolina Ballet's "Cinderella" will be on a program with a new "Peter and the Wolf," choreographed by Weiss to the well-known and very popular Prokofiev score. The second half of the family subscription is a premiere of "Sleeping Beauty" to the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky considered by many to be the most magnificent ballet score of all time.

Although "Nutcracker" is not part of this subscription package, it has become a Christmas tradition for Triangle-area families and is performed to a live orchestra.

Subscribers get to purchase "Nutcracker" tickets before they go on sale to the general public.

Principal guest choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett has been creating ballets for Carolina Ballet since the company's first season, and for this 10th anniversary, Carolina Ballet is bringing back three of her programs that are very popular and often requested by Triangle-area audiences -- "Carmina Burana," to Carl Orff's powerful score, accompanied by live singers of the North Carolina Master Chorale; "Carolina Jamboree," accompanied by Chapel Hill's The Red Clay Ramblers; and "Cabaret," to the music of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers, with a singer from New York on stage with the dancers.

Through these three programs Lynne Taylor-Corbett shows her amazing range in combining theater with dance to different musical genres.

A season at Carolina Ballet would not be complete without a bow to the great George Balanchine, from whom Robert Weiss learned his trade first as a dancer and then as a choreographer at New City Ballet. Carolina Ballet will present an evening of "Balanchine Repertoire," which will include the dynamic "Rubies."

Weiss is also creating a new evening of dance as a tribute to the waltz, the most romantic and fluid of traditional dances in "The Waltzes of Old Vienna." Weiss will select waltzes from the Strauss family and Franz Lehar to bring an elegant evening to the stage with beautiful sets and costumes.

To learn more being a subscriber to Carolina Ballet, patrons may call the Carolina Ballet box office at 919-719-0900.

Subscription prices vary depending on the package that is put together for each individual subscriber.