An Eifman Sampler

The Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg's gala opening at City Center celebrated the 30 years that Boris Eifman's company has been in existence, but it wasn't your garden-variety anniversary bash. Founded and still based in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Eifman troupe has become in the last decade a regular visitor to New York and indeed to cities across America. But the first half of Friday evening's entertainment was the world premiere of a new piece, not by Mr. Eifman, but by a young choreographer, Nikita Dmitrievsky. The second part of the program was a potpourri of excerpts from the evening-long works that dominate Mr. Eifman's current repertory, but also featured the American premiere of Mr. Eifman's duet "Double Voice," which helped launch his company back in 1977.

Mr. Dmitrievky's work, "Cassandra," consisted of strands of mythological narrative lifted from Homer, Aeschylus, Euripedes, and depicted their fates unfolding amid schematically patterned ensembles. It was a little confusing that the same dancer, Yury Ananyan performed the roles of both Apollo and Agamemnon, but the program notes clarified the situation.

Mr. Dmitrievsky's Cassandra varied between seeming like a Martha Graham heroine searching for her voice, her identity and resembled a Chosen Maiden in a recension of "Le Sacre du Printemps." The movement was frequently doublejointed and neurotic and "Cassandra" was performed to an appropriately clamorous and portentous score by Gustav Holst.

The second part of the program demonstrated Mr. Eifman's sure command of potent theatricality and his uninhibited gift for free-association. Most of his full-length ballets are based on classic works of literature, usually Russian, that he digresses from and dilates upon at will. He is not always subtle and indeed likes to traffic in sensationalism. But here, as his troupe leapt from excerpt to excerpt, we saw his work at its best: ever-fascinated by the grotesque, limitlessly inventive, and unquestionably stageworthy. He seemed like a grand master in his chosen métier.

There were selections from his uncharacteristically lighthearted "Who's Who," a spin on the movie "Some Like It Hot," the darker "Anna Karenina," and "Karamazovs," which exemplifies echt-Eifman. Throughout his repertory Mr. Eifman has allied himself with the Russian penchant for hysteria à la Dostoyevsky, as well as his country's potential for mayhem on both the individual and societal scale. "Karamazovs" exemplifies Mr. Eifman's Catholic sonic derivations: We heard sampling from "Tannhäuser" overlaid with recitations from Dostoyevsky's great novel.

In Mr. Eifman's "Don Quixote," the Don wears his knight-errant's attire, but seems to have been institutionalized, shepherded by what might have been a 16th-century forbearer of Nurse Ratched. Sudden blasts of non-sequitur intrude, however, and the stage then fills with romping couples lifted from the more familiar balletic warhorse.

Finally, "Double Voices" began with applause, presumably from Russian émigrés who had seen it long ago in their home country. This duet had, and continues to have, great resonance for Mr. Eifman and his audience. Not only was it performed to the proscribed primal scream meets wah-wah pedal music of Pink Floyd, but it was originally danced by Alla Osipenko, who was one of the Kirov Ballet's greatest artists before she resigned from the company in 1971 after much conflict with the company's administration and the Communist Party. She danced "Double Voice" with her then-husband, John Markovsky, and the piece was in part a statement about their relationship. But "Double Voice" is also salted with references to roles filled with spectacular lifts and entanglements that Ms. Osipenko danced at the Kirov.

The collaboration of renegade ballerina and choreographer gave the piece ramifications that Friday night's performance couldn't duplicate, but "Double Voice" was nevertheless danced very well by Natalia Povoroznyuk and Oleg Gabyshev. Mr. Markovsky was a great partner but he is not a great technician; I wondered Friday if Mr. Gabyshev's virtuoso solo was more complex than what Mr. Markovsky had originally danced.

Mr. Eifman's entire roster, though, is exceptional. The dancers have a solid foundation in balletic discipline that makes them admirably precise in their ability to cast off all restraint. In the best tradition of Russian ballet companies, Mr. Eifman's corps de ballet is also a star in its own right. At the end of the evening, Mr. Eifman himself took the stage and participated with members of his troupe in a typically unabashed episode of gluttony from his "Don Juan and Moliere."

Until April 29 (West 55th St., between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-581-1212).