The real novelty at New York City Ballet’s season opening Tuesday wasn’t the new ballet, but a nearly forgotten bonbon by George Balanchine.
“Who Cares?” — a Jazz Age salute to the Gershwins’ hummable tunes — returned to the stage with a treat: “Clap Yo’ Hands,” a song included when the ballet debuted in 1970 but later dropped. This time, it was danced — as it was originally — to a 1926 recording with George Gershwin at the piano.
The ballet is Balanchine’s nod to the Great White Way of the 1920s, with sparkly costumes and skyscrapers on the backdrop. A new cast took the lead, and made themselves at home in the Broadway-ballet mix.
Tiler Peck got to be jazzy and bluesy in “The Man I Love” instead of spinning like a top, as she usually does. Another of the company’s gyroscopes, Ana Sophia Scheller, did the honors in “My One and Only” while Sterling Hyltin pranced through “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” like a sporty co-ed.
Partnering all three women was Robert Fairchild, who flavored his strong dancing with a beguiling soft-shoe touch.
The evening opened with the new ballet by company director Peter Martins, “Naive and Sentimental Dances,” to pulsing, insistent music by John Adams.
The lengthy work — unveiled at the troupe’s November gala — is in three parts, each with the women in different colored chiffon dresses and the men in sleeveless uniforms. After the first movement in green, blue and brown, there’s a dusky central section in lunar white and a final pounding section in red and gray.
The plotless work is danced in Martins’ punchy style: lots of aggressive steps but no clear point — like an enormous engine without a destination.
The roughest aspect of Martins’ ballets is that they’re so guarded. There are hints about emotions, but always presented as if there were nothing but steps. Martins can make steps, but wouldn’t it be nice if he made you care about them?