BALLET REVIEW : Little Ecstasy Over ‘Ecstatic Orange’

The New York City Ballet faces a most ingenious paradox.

When the company concentrates on the legacy of George Balanchine, it threatens to become a museum. Given the vagaries of choreographic recollection and transmission, it may not even be a good museum.

When, on the other hand, the company tries to expand the repertory, it reminds us all too painfully that Balanchine is gone. There has been no second coming. Comparisons are deadly.

All this was brought into awkward focus Wednesday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Peter Martins, the official keeper of the City Ballet flame, served a Martins sandwich. His own “Ecstatic Orange” functioned as the central substance with Balanchine staples used as bread.

Thank goodness for the bread.

It didn’t turn out to be gourmet bread. One has to be grateful these days, however, for any sort of nourishment.

The bill opened with “Mozartiana,” the 1981 masterpiece in which Balanchine paid homage on the stage to his muse of the moment, Suzanne Farrell, while Tchaikovsky paid homage in the pit to Wolfgang Amadeus. This is a ballet stamped with a specific ballerina’s persona.

Other dancers have followed bravely in Farrell’s unique footsteps. Darci Kistler, again on the injured list, has enjoyed considerable success in the role. So, for that matter, has Kyra Nichols, who inherited the daunting honors on this occasion.

She is a lovely dancer, and she performed here with fine clarity, artfully disguised strength and dedication that bordered on reverence. She conveyed the awe of the initial Preghiera with simple restraint, and she mastered the complexities of the Theme and Variations with virtuosic ease.

The ease may have been the problem. Nichols never seemed to be taking chances, never seemed to be flirting with danger. She knew what she was doing, and she did it neatly.

One longed--unfairly, perhaps--for Farrell’s rapturous abandon, not to mention the uncanny sense of spontaneity she conveyed, even when it may have been premeditated.

Damian Woetzel partnered Nichols with forceful generosity and executed his solos with a compelling fusion of all-American nonchalance and Soviet-style bravura. If it weren’t for the horror of the pun, one might say that his career has progressed in leaps and bounds since his teen-age debut with the Los Angeles Ballet.

Gen Horiuchi darted through the quirky little Gigue with cheeky aplomb. Gordon Boelzner and the imported orchestra provided an uncommonly sympathetic musical impetus.

“Vienna Waltzes,” which closed the program, found Balanchine striking trivial, almost kitschy attitudes in 1977. Luckily, the trivia is discerning and the kitsch lofty.

This sentimental melange fuses nostalgic ballroom manners and mannerisms--the ballerinas wear heels--with subtle accents of classical ritual. The score ranges from Johann to Richard Strauss, with detours for an operettic Lehar divertissement and a springy little polka anachronism.

The modest set by Rouben Ter-Arutunian earned applause from the near-capacity audience, possibly because it was the only set seen all evening. The designer managed to adorn the stage with some wispy trees that eventually disappeared in favor of a glitzy Jugendstil salon.

The five central couples, all deft but few inspired, swayed and swirled with traces of lilting pathos. On occasion, they even did so with wilting charm. Still, one had to wonder--sacrilegiously, of course--how long such a chic jeu d’esprit would have survived in the repertory if the author had been named Arpino rather than Balanchine. One also had to wonder if the performance would have revealed greater definition of character if Mr. B were still lurking in the wings.

Maria Calegari, suavely complemented by Adam Luders, brought sweet delicacy to the role Suzanne Farrell used to fill with mysterious yearning. Judith Fugate and Robert LaFosse glittered nicely in their dapper duet. Valentina Kozlova, courted compellingly by Otto Neubert, oozed sophistication in the fashionable poses of the potentially merry widow.

In the pit, Hugo Fiorito tended appreciatively to the hesitant beats of three-quarter time in Alt Wien .

Martins’ “Ecstatic Orange,” first performed in 1987, isn’t ecstatic, and it certainly doesn’t move like clockwork. It is a frenzied, brutal three-part exercise in which the muscular Jock Soto spends a lot of time and wastes a lot of perspiration tying the wiry Heather Watts in clumsy knots.

The ballet isn’t even orange any more. Mark Stanley has abandoned the obvious light cues that used to illustrate the title, presumably inspired by Michael Torke’s trashy-thumpy score. Black and white abstractions are now the key.

The model for this flashy neo-aerobic indulgence with sadomasochistic undertones would seem to lie in one of Balanchine’s Stravinsky ballets. But Martins diverts the nervous energy in fussy maneuvers that lack both focus and direction. The formula rhythms chug nowhere. The choreographer seems to filter the inherent ferocity through disco sensibilities.

The leotarded dancers give their all. They even manage to hint at lyricism beneath the trendy violence of the second--”Green”--movement. They try desperately, occasionally with success, to make gymnastic torture look aesthetic as well as athletic.

Still, the folks at MTV do this sort of thing better.