Revivals & Rarities On Opening Night

American Ballet Theatre has come late to the party — in this case, the year’s celebrations of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. On Wednesday night, it made up for lost time by opening its fall gala at City Center with the first movement of Balanchine’s “Symphonie Concertante,” set to Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra.” The ballet was created for School of American Ballet students in 1945, then performed by Balanchine’s Ballet Society, the precursor to New York City Ballet, in 1947.A year later, when NYCB was formed, it entered the troupe’s repertory, was performed for the next five years, then inexplicably dropped. These days, it isn’t performed often — this was ABT’s first performance since 1999 — which is a shame, since it is one of Balanchine’s greatest works.On Wednesday night the women’s ensemble danced beautifully, and Veronika Part and Michele Wiles were perfectly cast as viola and violin, respectively. The two ballerinas, who parallel the musical interaction, are sometimes aware of each other; at others, each seems in her own world. The score is dominated by canonic interplay between the two instruments, and, just as violin and viola repeat each other’s voice, the ballerinas repeat each other’s steps. Depending on the length of the phrases, they are more or less close on each other’s heels.The tempo for “Symphonie” was slower than Balanchine probably originally intended. This was perhaps to accommodate Ms. Part, but worked to Ms. Wiles’s advantage as well, allowing her to concentrate on breath and to observe Balanchine’s use of silence and stillness as active time, sound, and movement values. Ms. Wiles has given too many strained performances recently, but here seemed to have regained equilibrium and danced with much more physical and emotional serenity than she usually displays.But though both ballerinas emphasized graciousness and elegance, they never dulled the ballet’s youthful impetuosity.Last night also marked the revival of Twyla Tharp’s “Sinatra Suite,” originally constructed for ABT in 1983 as a vehicle for Mikhail Baryshnikov.There was a host of ambivalences present in the original, hinging on Mr. Baryshnikov’s unquestioning admiration for Western, and particularly American, cultural icons and his avid desire to connect with them, even ones that had become slightly stale or soiled. The 1983 premiere was also marked by Mr. Baryshnikov’s willingness to shed all inhibitions and give himself wholly to new choreography in a way that he perhaps no longer could with classical roles.Nothing like this same cultural remix was present on Wednesday night, when the piece was performed by Herman Cornejo and Sarah Lane. They were skilled and appealing, but “Sinatra Suite” is not a piece built on appeal. The ballet’s original incarnation also displayed the surly and aggressive edge to Mr. Baryshnikov’s relationship with his partner, Elaine Kudo. That edge wasn’t present last night, even through the apache hostilities contained in the choreography itself. Instead, it was necessary to step back Wednesday night and think about how the two dancers fielded each partnering hot potato. Nor was Mr. Cornejo fully at home in his closing solo to “One For My Baby,” in which he merely sketched in the many dynamic shifts and shadings.Other duets fared better. Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes impressively handled the partnering intricacies in Lar Lubovitch’s “Meadow.” And Paloma Herrera and Maxim Beloserkovsly were excellent in the “White Swan” adagio from “Swan Lake,” in which the corps de ballet was also included, as it is when the adagio is performed in the full-length ballet. This is the way it should be done, and this addition was perhaps partly responsible for the emotional content the two dancers were able to interject. Such involvement is often missing when the adagio is performed on its own.The first half of the evening closed with Agrippina Vaganova’s “Diana and Acteon” pas de deux, danced by Xiomara Reyes and Jose Manuel Carreño. This duet, created in 1935, is hardly a masterpiece of choreography, but it is an effective showpiece as well as an intriguing cultural artifact. Vaganova, for whom the state ballet school in Leningrad was posthumously renamed in 1957, became pedagogical architect of the new Soviet ballet, but was also deeply identified with Imperial ballet and pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg society. She was, of course, beholden to the Soviet state, but was not herself a party member. Some of these tensions seem to be manifest in the pas de deux.The ballet’s booming virtuosity and rather obvious musicality are typical of a particular Soviet aesthetic, but it also seems as though Vaganova is recalling ballets of her youth. When the two dancers cup their ears and thereby reference the horns in the orchestra as a hunting call-to-arms, one is reminded how much more gestural, dramatic, and anecdotal the coloration of classical ballet once was.This pas de deux could have benefited from being performed as the “Swan Lake” adagio had been, with the corps accompaniment that is in the original. On Wednesday night, its raison d’etre was Mr. Carreño’s Acteon. His virtuosity flourishes were remarkable as tricks, but just as worthy as dance expression. He embodied the exuberance of hero and lover without sliding into kitsch. Ms. Reyes’s physique and manner make her inherently more soubrette than goddess of the hunt, but like everything, the “Diana and Acteon” pas de deux will support a variety of interpretations. She paid attention to line and steered clear from vulgarity.This pas de deux became popular in Mr. Carreño’s and Ms. Reyes’s native Cuba, during the years of Soviet/Cuban rapport, so Wednesday night’s performance proved an interesting Cuban/Russian/Attic matrix.The evening closed with Ms. Tharp’s “In the Upper Room,” led by Stella Abrera and Gillian Murphy, who were even better in the ballet than when the two first danced it a year ago. They seemed to be undergoing an eerie rite of possession by endorphins in Ms. Tharp’s paean to physical hardiness and endurance.

Revivals & Rarities On Opening Night

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