The New York City Ballet season has been a dazzling showcase for dancers, and young talent, especially, has come to the fore.
It might be tempting, in this light, to envisage the troupe as a dancers' collective rather than the choreographers' company it has always been. Excellent as the performers have been over the decades, they were -- particularly during the lifetime of George Balanchine, City Ballet's founding artistic director -- defined primarily as creative instruments.
For Balanchine, the work on view was more important than a specific dancer. It is easy to say that he slyly made himself -- the choreographer -- the star within his own company. The truth has more integrity. Under his aegis, ballet choreography became an independent art, no longer reliant upon star personalities.
This season, a packed house at the New York State Theater turned out not only for Balanchine's "Agon" and "Symphony in C" but also to see a particular guest artist in those ballets. Darcey Bussell of Britain's Royal Ballet had created such a sensation in an excerpt from "Agon" last June at the Balanchine Celebration's closing night that it was logical to invite her back. She was scheduled for four performances; a fifth was later added.
Is it possible then that this or that dancer rather than the repertory as a whole will one day be the main draw at City Ballet?
The prospect is not unlikely, but it is also not imminent. Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein established City Ballet in 1948 as a creative organization, primarily for Balanchine, but they also immediately invited other collaborators -- beginning with Jerome Robbins. Peter Martins, the company's current artistic director, has maintained this tradition. The 1992 Diamond Project, which operated as a public workshop for guest choreographers, will have its second edition this spring with 11 choreographers, some new to City Ballet.
Nonetheless, fans will always have their favorite dancers, and the public at large instinctively recognizes an exceptional and developing talent. Ethan Stiefel, already a 20-year-old matinee idol, had only to step on stage in his first "Harlequinade" this month for the applause to roll in.
Miss Bussell's appearances were presented with a shrewd eye toward her box-office appeal. But they were also artistically justified. She is a stunning dancer, fusing extreme clarity of form with a sweetness that creates an uncanny mix of sensuality and innocence. The erotic aura of her "Agon" pas de deux last summer was now complemented by the dreamlike texture of her adagio in "Symphony in C."
Yet one guest star does not a season make. Any appraisal of the company's sheer dance power would have to start with Damian Woetzel, who was reconfirmed as the troupe's leading man. His virtuosity continues to be spectacular but unforced. The company's male contingent has clearly improved under Mr. Martins's direction. Nikolaj Hubbe, for instance, has contributed the kind of emotional concentration once alien to City Ballet but now coloring the performances of others.
This quality is natural to the younger generation, including Mr. Stiefel. Newcomers like Christopher Wheeldon and Benjamin Bowman come across with striking verve. It is time, incidentally, to promote Alexander Ritter, one of City Ballet's best dancers, out of the corps.
The burden of the repertory still rests with the Balanchine-trained ballerinas, notably Darci Kistler and Kyra Nichols. But Wendy Whelan and Margaret Tracey are noticeably the female principals coming up behind them. Moreover, the ballerina potential in the ranks below looks brighter after a series of debuts in major roles by astonishingly assured dancers like Jenifer Ringer and Monique Meunier, and the even younger Miranda Weese.
The season was more remarkable for its performance standards than for its two scheduled premieres. A third new work, Mr. Martins's "Papillons" to Schumann, has been added to next Sunday's closing night. Of the premieres presented earlier, "A Schubert Sonata" by Richard Tanner, succeeded best and refrained from merely emulating the music's structure. Its four sections imaginatively kept the viewer guessing as to where the ballet was going.
In the first movement, Mr. Hubbe and Ms. Whelan had a formal duet with a romantic tinge, but the exuberance of the second section was simply built upon the irresistible dynamism of Mr. Stiefel and Mr. Bowman, both flanking Yvonne Borree. In a mysterious love encounter in the third section, Ms. Meunier and Jock Soto were pulled frequently into an embrace. The fourth segment swept the emotional undercurrents into a playful communal finale.
Mr. Martins implied a stronger subtext in "Symphonic Dances," in which the indefatigable Mr. Hubbe, fusing folk and classical idioms, sought and lost an ideal personified by Ms. Kistler. The Rachmaninoff score suggested too many unrealized dramatic images for its own good. The ballet's pure-dance passages, mainly for 16 corps members and four couples, had a greater decisive vigor.
In a certain perverse way, the two premieres heralded a new phase in the post-Balanchine era. Both choreographers turned to music that their mentor would have found unsuitable for dance. After "Errante" (1933), Balanchine did not create another full ballet to Schubert. He called Rachmaninoff's orchestral works "mush." For better or for worse, this City Ballet season marked a refusal to remain tied to the past.
