There’s no better way for New York City Ballet to kick off its fall season than with a celebration of its Dynamic Duo: George Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky. Tuesday night’s opening featured a trilogy of their collaborations loosely connected by Greek titles — and if it wasn’t perfection, it was still a perfect example of partnership.
With just a wisp of white fabric covering his torso, Robert Fairchild looked like a young god as he threw himself into jazzy skids from Balanchine’s earliest masterpiece, the 1928 “Apollo,” but the result was more calculated than playful. Sterling Hyltin interpreted his favorite muse, Terpsichore, the same way as she stood poised, facing away from him like a sculptor’s model.
Tiler Peck may have played Polyhymnia, the muse Apollo doesn’t choose, but her light exuberance was right on target. She raced out for a solo, her finger over her mouth, as the goddess of silent mime. But bubbling over with mischief, you knew she was going to blab by the end and disqualify herself.
Even with Stravinsky’s beautiful, restrained score, 1948’s “Orpheus,” is a better work in your imagination than on the stage. Sculptor Isamu Noguchi made the timeless sets — glowing boulders that rise and fall representing the journey to the underworld — but bulky, dated costumes and Balanchine’s vision of hell seem strangely sterile.
Still, Tuesday night’s cast made the most of it. Ask la Cour’s Orpheus was well-acted, with urgent grief. As Eurydice, his prematurely dead wife, Wendy Whelan radiated simple affection.
In the ballet’s beautiful and poignant duet, the lovers ascend from Hades arabesque by arabesque. Eurydice begs for just one look from Orpheus, who relents, only to lose her again, forever.
If “Orpheus” has rough patches that we overlook in favor of the genius; “Agon,” from 1957, is close to perfect in both steps and music.
The mathematically precise dance that Balanchine called his “IBM ballet” got a sharp reading from the entire cast — maybe too tough. But that worked for the usually placid Maria Kowroski, who needed the push. She shot onstage, whirled around and dove down, hooking her foot around Sebastien Marcovici’s head. Andrew Veyette strode forward, glaring at us by the end of a striking reading of his solo, but then he sometimes lost control of his dancing.
There’s a second cast with more new faces in it; both are worth seeing. This week and next brings two additional Balanchine-Stravinsky programs, as well. Like Batman and Robin, that’s still a team that’s hard to beat.