New York City Ballet, Sept. 28, 2014

I am happy to report that Peter Martins is currently keeping the Balanchine repertory in pretty good shape, which has not always been the case.  Perhaps Martins has come to realize that the artistic failure of most post-Balanchine works has made it necessary to keep the Balanchine ballets at a high artistic level, if only to keep an audience while we wait for the next great choreographer, who is not likely to be Martins or Wheeldon or Ratmansky.  Sunday's performance of four Balanchine works was a delight, even if I have a slight quibble with an all-Tchaikovsky program, with too many predictable tours jetes and chaine turns.

The sisterhood of the corps in Serenade, which has expanded through the years as Balanchine expanded the choreography, is in its anonymity one of the most moving images we have in all ballet. 
Arlene Croce
Serenade, originally done in 1935, looks as fresh and modern as ever.  Balanchine reversed the order of the last two movements, making an emotionally complex work, the narrative of which lies elusively just beyond reach (true of many Balanchine ballets).  The roles for men are relatively simple, but elegant, and one can identify with their emotional intensity.

Mozartiana is a world in a bubble....But it will always be Suzanne Farrell's ballet.
Arlene Croce.
Maria Kowroski was wonderful in Mozartiana and it certainly not her fault that she is not Suzanne Farrell.  Those of us who were fortunate enough to see Farrell in this last major work that Balanchine did for her will never forget it, especially the audacious off-balance turns that were a Farrell specialty.  As I have mentioned before, no doubt Balanchine would have adapted the choreography for different dancers, as he often did.

Tchaikovsky's melancholy is always accounted for, not only as the pervasive mood of his Andantes and Elegies but as a persistent aura edging even his brightest moments.
Arlene Croce.
This is an appropriate insight into Tchaikovsky Suite # 3, where life (both Tchaikovsky's and Balanchine's) are transferred into art.  The melancholy of the first three movements may be about the women in Tchaikovsky's life -- his mother, who died when he was young; his sister and her two children, his disastrous marriage to Antonia Milyukova -- but also about the four women Balanchine married and the one, Suzanne Farrell, who he did not wed. But as the scrim is removed from the stage and Theme and Variations starts it is clear we are out of the realm of fantasy and ghosts and into a thrilling ballroom of love and partners that can, at least temporarily, overcome melancholy.  When Joaquin De Luz does his tours en l'air, followed by multiple pirouettes, happiness reigns.
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Sunday's performance also included Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, a short piece to an original part of the Swan Lake score, which demonstrates how Balanchine saw men and women: as equal partners who can thrive together and individually.  The entire day's performance was conducted by Clotilde Otranto, who had the orchestra sounding quite lovely.