Choice Ballet

Balanchine Masterpieces

Merriam Theater, Oct. 20-30

The program’s title is no hype. Rubies (1967) and Bugaku (1963) are Balanchine at the top of his form and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1936) is broad fun; all received performances that ranged from good to outstanding.

The highlight of the evening was Bugaku, a product of Mr. B. in an unusual Orientalizing mood, in which Leslie Carothers and David Krensing shone. Danced to a score by Toshiro Mayuzumi that sounds half percussively Japanese and half shimmering Debussy, it is an exercise in elegant erotica. It represents the sexual initiation of a tremulous young aristocratic girl by a not-at-all tremulous older man. Each enters the handsome simple set ceremoniously, accompanied by attendants. The attendants depart, the pair take off their robes and there ensues a sinuous adagio. Allegra Kent, on whom Balanchine set the part in 1963, has said that she thought she was chosen partly because of her great flexibility. Carothers is more than limber enough to manage the role’s technical demands and as usual she was a wonderful dancing actress, creating the character with delicate movement. (The dancers had the inestimable benefit of Ms. Kent’s assistance in staging the ballet.)

Rubies is set to Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, a piece that starts at a gallop and then accelerates. The problem on opening night was that the dancers and the orchestra had not succeeded in reaching a meeting of the minds. In this case, the musicians kept lagging behind, keeping the dancers — especially the usually brilliant Jodie Gates and Jeffrey Gribler — from fully realizing the witty movement that Balanchine had devised and that gives Rubies its sparkle. The explanation may lie in the astonishing fact that the company can afford only one complete run-through on stage with the orchestra, which is simply not enough; as a result, later performances may well be sharper.

Slaughter, which according to theater historians was the first musical-comedy ballet to be completely integrated into the story, is pre-NYCB Balanchine moonlighting on Broadway, this time in Rodgers and Hart’s On Your Toes. Its convoluted plot, about a nightclub stripper and a hoofer who loves her and a murder and a lot more, is amiably silly but tolerable because it takes itself not seriously at all. Arantxa Ochoa and Edward Cieslak celebrated their promotion to the rank of soloist with a bang-up performance, wringing all there was from their parts.

—Robert Ackerman