DANCE REVIEW : Dismal to Dazzling Salute to Balanchine

A is for “Apollo”: Let the marathon begin. Thus spake New York City Ballet to begin eight weeks of 73 ballets by George Balanchine, arranged in chronological order. By Tuesday, the Balanchine Celebration had performed works spanning the first 20 years of Balanchine’s 60-plus-year career.

This leg gave an overview of the ballet master’s pre-City Ballet career. The ballet scenario or book helps determine the mood and method of these early works, which show how adept the choreographer was at working literary fancy into his visionary, nonverbal theater.

The 1928 “Apollo” (to Stravinsky) was a “restored” staging. Not since the choreographer truncated his work in 1978 has City Ballet presented “Apollo” with its Prologue or birth scene and its final ascent-to-Parnassus tableau.

(Ironically, as one of the many out-of-town critics now in New York to experience Balanchine at the source pointed out, companies as diverse as the Kirov and Miami City Ballet have been presenting the uncut “Apollo” for well over a year.)

Still, the restoration of “Apollo” by the company Balanchine founded is something of an event, if not a first. How distressing, therefore, to note the ballet’s first cast: Nilas Martins, son of City Ballet’s current Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins, was ineffectual in the eponymous role, to say the most. His bewildered, lackluster manner and sketchy dancing as the young man assuming godliness marked a chilling low point in the history of “Apollo” at City Ballet.

Fortunately, the sterling presence and classical expertise of Peter Boal, heading a second cast three nights later, antidoted the first, dismal “Apollo.” Of the trio of Muses in each cast, only Wendy Whelan as Polyhymnia in the first and Margaret Tracey as Terpsichore in the second danced their roles with boldness and freshness.

Among the 11 other ballets, two rarities were shown. Both entered the repertory on a program billed as “1947 Premieres.” One, now called “Haieff Divertimento” and formerly called “Divertimento,” was the last to be included in the selection of works.

At a 1992 press conference announcing the celebration, no such reconstructions were indicated. The company would not engage in “ambulance chasing,” said City Ballet’s grand old czar and co-founder Lincoln Kirstein.

But eventually Peter Martins chose to stage a version of Balanchine’s almost legendary ballet to Alexei Haieff’s Divertimento. Last given in the 1950s, the “lost” work had previously been pieced together by Francisco Moncion (one of the original leads) for Kansas City Ballet in 1985.

The result is intriguing in design and drama but now lacking in dramatic weight due to casting. The quirky yet courtly affair involves one central and four lesser couples. It creates delicate theatrical tension around the delayed appearance and the early departure of the leading ballerina.

The deficiency here springs from the central couple. As the ballerina who materializes and disappears, the otherwise physically adept Whelan is short on nuance and mystery. As the man to whom she appears, the wan Nilas Martins, however deft a partner, again lacks individuality.

“Symphonie Concertante,” to Mozart, conjures a very different mood, one of shimmer and ebullience. Originally created for Balanchine’s budding dance academy, the School of American Ballet, here it was danced by students from today’s school. While the three leading roles are really beyond the capabilities of student dancers, the choreography for a tutu-ed ensemble is perfect for them.

The whole showcase, in a staging based on one American Ballet Theatre put together in 1983, and revised by Susan Pilarre of the school, set the spirit of the season rising.

By the sixth of 48 days, a palpable sense of elation was building onstage and in the larger than usual audiences. Balanchine’s Old World subjects, as in “The Prodigal Son” (1929 to Prokofiev) and “La Sonnambula” (1946 to Rieti), showed fresh life, particularly with repeat performances by Robert LaFosse in the former and Nikolaj Hubbe in the latter.

With a magisterial Kyra Nichols as the ballerina in “Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2” (called “Ballet Imperial” in 1941), the celebration reached its first summit. It’s hard to imagine ballet theater climbing higher than this, but if any repertory invites the prospect, it is Balanchine’s.