New York City Ballet’s “Traditions” program reached back to Balanchine’s 1929 “Prodigal Son,” one of only two complete ballets surviving from the long list of creations he made for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes during the 1920s. On Friday night, Damian Woetzel was the son in this retelling of the biblical parable of rebellion, dissipation, and repentance. Mr. Woetzel, who is retiring this year, didn’t jump as high as the men’s ensemble in which he was frequently enmeshed, but he was nevertheless thoroughly believable in his youthful dash, impetuosity, and hunger. Maria Kowroski was the Siren who gives the son the lesson that all that glitters is not gold. She was at home in the role’s cold, posturing rapacity and with the wit informing its many suggestive, balletically unorthodox entanglements.

Opening the program was Balanchine’s “Square Dance,” where tradition harks back to the late 17th century, when British folk dances became infused with French court steps. The eventual descendent of this fusion was American square dancing. “Square Dance” is performed to selections by Corelli and Vivaldi, both of which have pronounced country flavor. On Friday, Megan Fairchild replaced the announced Abi Stafford, and she seemed to pick up where she left off last year. Ms. Fairchild arrived onstage on a high wind of bravura in the opening movement, in which she avoided being stiff, dry, or tight amidst the uncompromising speed and staccato of her phrases. Andrew Veyette, her partner in a long, slow-then-fast duet, showed his line as he danced alongside her, prefiguring the stately pace and ruminative quality of the solo he dances later in the ballet.

“Traditions” concluded with Jerome Robbins’s “The Four Seasons,” which is performed to ballet music Verdi wrote for his opera “I Vespri Siciliani.” Robbins’s ballet follows Verdi’s scenario, in which Janus, god of beginnings and endings, ushers in each new season in turn. The ballet is one of Robbins’s best; its programmatic scenario served to discipline Robbins’s powers of invention and elaboration.

In “Winter,” Sterling Hyltin made her debut in the role that Ms. Fairchild was originally listed to perform; whether shivering, skating, or snow-flaking, Ms. Hyltin sprinkled charm. Flanking her were high-flying Antonio Carmena and Adam Hendrickson dancing two of the numerous satyr-like figures who populate the ballet. The following “Spring” contains the most interesting choreography in the ballet. It is evocative of Balanchine, but not slavishly so; and it is Robbins at his most inventive. Partnered by Philip Neal, Sara Mearns made yet another debut in a season in which she’s been given a bumper crop of them; some strain showed beneath her generally distinguished performance. Notable in “Spring” was the quartet danced by Tyler Angle, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Austin Laurent, and Giovanni Villalobos. Here, as in “Winter,” Robbins takes obvious pleasure in the healthy competition ensuing when two or more young men young share the stage. Each of these four vernal blades came in first.

The haze of “Summer” was evoked by Rachel Rutherford and Stephen Hanna before “Fall” arrived, vaulting Daniel Ulbricht to the front of the stage as the ballet’s headline satyr. Benjamin Millepied burned some rubber in the Bacchic lead role, which is understandable given that the role was created for Mikhail Baryshnikov and Robbins drew liberally upon the somewhat brutalist quality of Soviet male virtuosity for it. Ashley Bouder was confident in a role that is by no means easy but is a little bit on the conventional side.

In the closing Bacchanal, all the seasons mingled and rioted easily.