Romancing the Dance / A NYC Ballet valentine offers favorites and a premiere

NEW YORK CITY BALLET. Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins. Program: George

Balanchine's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" (1975), music by Bizet; Sean Lavery's

Balcony Scene from "Romeo and Juliet" (1991), music by Prokofiev; Martins'

"Burleske" (world premiere), music by Richard Strauss; Balanchine's "Chaconne"

(1976), music by Gluck. At New York State Theater, Lincoln Center. Repertory

through Feb. 25. Seen Wednesday.

A ROARING FIRE, a starlit sky, a candle lit ballroom: Romance was in the air at

the New York State Theater Wednesday night, as the New York City Ballet

celebrated Valentine's Day with three old favorites and a world premiere.

It was a big night for couples. Damian Woetzel, expert as the toy soldier, and

Yvonne Borree as the paper doll, had their flirtatious fireside encounter to

the music of Bizet in George Balanchine's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier." Peter

Boal's Romeo and Jenifer Ringer's Juliet did that balcony thing under the stars

in Sean Lavery's setting of the Prokofiev score. Kyra Nichols and Philip Neal

were the dreamy (and divine) pair in Balanchine's "Chaconne," set to music from

Gluck's opera "Orph�e et Eurydice." And seven richly dressed couples cavorted

in a grand space hung with gray draperies and accented with candelabras in

"Burleske," the latest work by the City Ballet's boss, Peter Martins.

In Richard Strauss' "Burleske" for piano and orchestra, an early work

punctuated with dramatic drumrolls and multiple climaxes, Martins sees the rush

and tumult of love as well as its strength and serenity. Five women wearing

Carole Divet's waltz gowns in stained-glass colors and five men whose vests,

black in front, pick up the dresses' hues in back-sweep on and off stage,

sometimes in pairs, sometimes in same-sex choirs, but always in unexpected

patterns at unexpected moments.

Weaving among them and sometimes replacing them are two lead couples in pale,

pearly colors: Janie Taylor and Peter Boal, and Darci Kistler and Jared Angle.

Echoing the music's swift changes of mood, Martins gives each couple a distinct

dance personality. His choreography for Taylor and Boal has a young, bouncy

feel, with lots of lifts and jumps, while that for Kistler and Angle is more

deliberate and regal, with graceful turns and balances.

Taylor, who seemed a bit nervous and was missing her usual sparkle, and Angle,

an able if somewhat stolid partner, are two of the company's rising young

dancers -they've just been promoted out of the corps-and Martins has teamed

them here with two veterans, the grandly elegant Kistler and the courtly Boal.

There's a distinctly May-December quality to their duets, and, when Martins

finally brings his leads onstage for a quartet, it doesn't take them long to

change partners. The piece ends with Angle carrying Taylor away like a trophy

and Kistler and Boal in a pose of surpassing tenderness-a

something-for-everyone kind of Valentine.

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