Entertainment

TRYIN’ TO TIE IT ALL TOGETHER

NEW YORK City Ballet performances used to take a scattershot, Chinese-menu approach to ballet programming – pick one from this column, one from that and one from completely out of left field. But for the past few seasons, City Ballet has adopted a new system of programming, providing a series of set program groupings that are all linked by some eye-catching name.

Over the weekend, I saw two of these often oddly titled groups: “Matters of the Heart” and an all-Balanchine program, bowing Saturday night, called “Russian Treasures.”

“Matters of the Heart” was also chiefly Balanchine, except for a silly, sterile piece by Christopher Wheeldon. New last season, the piece is cinematically inclined, with a specially commissioned score by Bright Sheng. It’s set to that nastily cynical Oscar Wilde short story, complete with cutesy O. Henry-like ending about a nightingale who sacrifices her heart’s blood for a couple of stupid students.

The inarticulate choreography is no better than the story. On the other hand, the dancing – particularly by Wendy Whelan as the sanguine nightingale – definitely is.

Another short story, this one by Hans Christian Andersen, inspired Balanchine’s brief duet “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.” It too is cynical, but childlike – and danced with gleaming gusto by Megan Fairchild and Daniel Ulbrict.

For me, the highlight of this program was its opener, the marvelously intricate “Raymonda Variations,” led with a mix of pizazz and nobility by Ashley Bouder and Andrew Veyette.

The closing piece, Robert Schumann’s “Davidsbundlertanze,” widely regarded as one of Balanchine’s final two masterpieces, was created three years before his death. It strikes a deep-felt valedictory note, even though its structure, largely a series of detailed romantic duets tends toward the monotonous.

Among the eight dancers, Jared Angle, Janie Taylor (returned after a long absence) and, particularly, Sara Mearns were exceptional.

The other of these two last masterworks, “Mozartiana,” formed the centerpiece of the all- Tchaikovsky program, “Russian Treasures.” But much like the ending, “Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2,” both had generally desultory, listless performances, with the exception of Whelan in the first and the inexhaustible Bouder in the second.

They were not helped by the musical accompaniment, although the dancers in the opening “Serenade” were rather more successful in coping with all-too-similar difficulties.

NEW YORK CITY BALLET
New York State Theater, Lincoln Center; (212) 870-5570. Through Sunday.