Woetzel Waves Goodbye

Damian Woetzel's farewell performance at New York City Ballet on Wednesday night gave the audience and his fellow dancers a chance to show their affection and respect, and gave him a chance to show that he remained worthy of earning it without apologies. Mr. Woetzel, who joined the company in 1985, has always been a fine technician; over the years he became much more than that. On Wednesday, Mr. Woetzel and his colleagues performed before an audience pitched to a height of anticipation and jubilance rarely experienced at a ballet performance. But nerves and sentiment can prevent a goodbye performance from showing us the artist and his company at their very best, and, to some extent, that was the case Wednesday evening.

The program opened with "Fancy Free," in which Mr. Woetzel's performance could be set alongside his outstanding work in other Robbins works this season, namely "Afternoon of a Faun" and "Dances at a Gathering." As the three sailors on leave, Mr. Woetzel, Tyler Angle, and Joaquin De Luz were in fine fettle. Yes, they were overdoing things, but they were pushing in the right directions, and the Robbins works at NYCB are kept in such meticulous shape that no one ever thinks of pushing too hard. Mr. Woetzel and Tiler Peck were wonderful in the duet, which was less torchy and abandoned than it is sometimes danced. Without being uptight, Ms. Peck portrayed a self-respecting young woman who was intent on maintaining boundaries, while Mr. Woetzel wasn't going to back off unless he had to. Together they generated a primal, territorial tension.

What followed might be called an exploding cigar performance of Balanchine's "Rubies." It was giddy and chaotic, partly by design, partly by the dancers seeming to run amok in their exuberance. The principal gag here was the revolving-door casting that brought us different couples for each of the three movements.

First came Gonzalo Garcia and Megan Fairchild dancing the opening Presto. Then in the central duet appeared Ashley Bouder and Mr. De Luz, who were a very odd couple indeed. Wearing a tiara and dancing on pointe, Ms. Bouder dwarfs Mr. De Luz, and this isn't the kind of subtext that's necessary here. It is a challenge for Ms. Bouder to discipline her energy on the most circumspect of occasions; here she was so frenetic she looked like she was pushing Mr. De Luz around. I've never seen Ms. Bouder's "Rubies" before, and I'll look forward to seeing it again under saner conditions. Dancing the "pin-up" soloist all the way through here was Teresa Reichlen, who also went off the deep end. For the final Allegro, Mr. Woetzel himself appeared batting clean-up. Partnering Yvonne Borree, he sizzled in his spinning exit.

Balanchine's "Prodigal Son" was a worthy choice to conclude the evening and Mr. Woetzel's balletic career. It's not showy in the conventional way, and much of it is somber. But it's also a very clear and emotional story of a young man's painful coming-of-age, that could well be set alongside the milestones of retirement and transition. As the Prodigal, Mr. Woetzel got to bite off a great role that calls upon everything a dancer has to give. But it's also not the kind of role you can easily do after making two earlier appearances in an evening.

Here I enjoyed seeing Mr. Woetzel again given the chance to show one of his stylistic signatures: the prolonged passé position after a turn. He'd done it in parallel "sixth position" in "Fancy Free," and he did it coming out of a corkscrew turn in the first scene of "Prodigal," which he sailed through with undiminished power. At moments in this "Prodigal," however, Mr. Woetzel was colloquial in a way that really belonged more to "Fancy Free" than to the exotic biblical landscape of "Prodigal Son." His Siren was Maria Kowroski, who has it in her to be a great Siren; here she was just good. Nevertheless, this "Prodigal" built to a stirring climax in the final scene of homecoming and reconciliation, in which Mr. Woetzel and Ask la Cour as his father were attuned to each in exactly the right way. At that moment, one could say unequivocally that Mr. Woetzel's balletic career had ended on a peak of artistic and personal emotion.