NEW YORK CITY BALLET
At the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center. Call (212) 870-5570. Season runs through March 3.
CREATED for a Tchaikovsky festival in 1981 and then put aside soon after, Jerome Robbins’ “Piano Pieces” has just made a sensational reappearance with New York City Ballet at the New York State Theater.
The reconstruction has been lovingly supervised by a team led by guest balletmaster Susan Hendl, and the results are entrancing.
It is a beautiful work, positively luminous in its simplicity. And it has returned to the repertory like an unexpectedly found lost treasure.
This 50-minute work is perhaps less of a coherent ballet than a magical divertissement, for its living heart is a long succession of duets and solos.
But what duets and what solos! This was Robbins at his magisterial best. and it is exquisitely danced with the lambent Maria Kowrowski, lyrical Jennie Somogyi, piquant Alexandra Ansanelli and, commanding the games, a mercurial Benjamin Millepied.
Other once-neglected works have also returned to City Ballet, including George Balanchine’s haunting “Ballade,” where a delicate Wendy Whelan was partnered in a debut by an elegant but over-remote Robert Tewsley.
And another restoration, Peter Martins’ linked Stravinsky trios, “Eight Pieces” (1980) and “Eight More” (1985), the latter with Daniel Ulbricht leading Antonio Carmena and Adam Hendrickson, flash-lit the strength of the company’s younger men.