Edition: U.S. / Global

BALLET THEATER REVIEW; Recalling Balanchine Before City Ballet

Published: May 26, 2004

Lest we forget, American Ballet Theater's new all-Tchaikovsky program in tribute to the centennial of George Balanchine's birth reminds us that Balanchine toiled at Ballet Theater in the 1940's. He created some of his best and most enduring works in companies other than his own New York City Ballet.

There was no City Ballet until 1948. When Balanchine joined Ballet Theater in 1943 and then shuttled around to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and to the Paris Opera as well, he never let his creativity flag.

At Ballet Theater he staged some of his past works and even polished a ''Giselle.'' ''Waltz Academy,'' which he created in 1944 for the company, did not survive. But ''Theme and Variations,'' which he choreographed for the Ballet Theater stars Alicia Alonso and Igor Youskevitch in 1947 and which opened this all-Balanchine tribute at the Metropolitan Opera House on Monday night, has remained its dazzling self.

Does Ballet Theater dance Balanchine differently from City Ballet and the companies directed by former City Ballet dancers? Yes. It gives his ballets a more Romantic edge, and sometimes there is less daring but not less technique. Stylistically City Ballet's blazing extended silhouette for the women yields to Ballet Theater's more harmonious textbook manner.

But Balanchine was danced variously in Balanchine's day, and the evening's four works, including ''Mozartiana,'' ''Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux'' and ''Ballet Imperial'' were enhanced by glittering dancing on their own nuanced terms.

The novelty was the company premiere of ''Mozartiana,'' choreographed for City Ballet's 1981 Tchaikovsky festival and led with breathtaking allure here by Nina Ananiashvili. She was framed by Angel Corella's virtuosity and by Herman Cornejo's astounding brilliance in a solo that alone is worth the price of admission.

The company's revival of the 1941 ''Ballet Imperial'' was also a triumph for Gillian Murphy in her debut in the fiercely difficult ballerina role. In 1973 Balanchine stripped this homage to the Russian Imperial Ballet of Tchaikovsky's time of its historic allusions. The old-St. Petersburg sets and costumes were removed, and ''Ballet Imperial'' was renamed after its score, ''Piano Concerto No. 2.''

As Balanchine explained then: ''What is imperial today? There is only the Empire Hotel.'' Today there is not even an Empire Hotel opposite Lincoln Center.

In 1988 Ballet Theater staged the work as ''Ballet Imperial,'' as distinct as possible from the City Ballet's current version.

This season's staging by Colleen Neary follows up on the 1991 staging by her older sister Patricia Neary, which was a vast improvement on the over-reverential 1988 production.

But the scenery and costumes by Rouben Ter-Arutunian from 1988 are largely intact: Maryinsky Theater blue tones, drapes, chandeliers, tiaras with tutus and a view of the Peter and Paul fortress in St. Petersburg. At the season's opening gala, the first movement was disappointingly danced. On Monday it was clear that Ballet Theater had pulled its socks up.

Like the Neary sisters, Maria Calegari is a former leading member of City Ballet, and she, like Colleen Neary, took a bow for her staging. Her coaching in ''Mozartiana'' has paid attention to form and atmosphere, but she allows the dancers to be themselves rather than copies of their predecessors.

Ms. Ananiashvili startled in the ballerina role with the fierceness of her turns and eruptive energy. But her overall interpretation is lyrical, and in the moment when City Ballet dancers plunge recklessly into an arabesque, arms held back, she takes a more careful approach. The phrasing thus becomes different, affecting the image of a ballerina obliged to make sense of a disjointed suite.

In his score Tchaikovsky transforms Mozart's music into a tribute to his predecessor. But Balanchine's images are unpredictable. In the opening prayer the ballerina evokes a pious bourgeoise of Molière's time framed by four little girls. When Ms. Ananiashvili and Mr. Corella moved into the taxing solos, she had a folk dance tinge to her arms and torso but spiced up the slow tempo, conducted by Charles Barker, with her strong hops on toe and speedy pirouettes.

The choreography's small steps do not suit Mr. Corella, who looked better in big leaps and turns. But Mr. Cornejo, later joined by four women, made the ''Gigue'' something amazingly light and clear: a classical dancer in a demi-charactère role who revealed exciting form.

''Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,'' to music from ''Swan Lake,'' is often danced with a cloying romantic daintiness at Ballet Theater. But Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky captured its straightforward essence as a contemporary show-stopper with their power and expansive performance.

The point is that Balanchine did not look back to 19th-century ballet but saw it as a springboard for the future. ''Theme and Variations,'' part of Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 3, and ''Ballet Imperial'' are distillations of 19th-century ballet in 20th-century terms. Paloma Herrera and Marcelo Gomes, impressive in his solos, had a playful dazzle as a Sleeping Beauty and Prince for our time. Mr. Barker conducted with brio.

In ''Ballet Imperial,'' Ms. Murphy's early solo to the thrilling piano cadenza of Barbara Bilach with David LaMarche's lively conducting, rightly promised energy, speed and detail for the rest of the ballet. Michele Wiles as the soloist, delivered the same uplift. Since the sets and costumes provide a context, Carlos Molina had an apt Byronic elegance.

Photo: Herman Cornejo of American Ballet Theater in George Balanchine's ''Mozartiana.'' (Photo by Nan Melville for The New York Times)