‘LEAVES ARE FADING’ BY BALLET THEATRE

The lyric, swoony, lovers-in-the-twilight ballet has become one of the great cliches of dance. How many times have we seen some ninny in toe shoes arch her back in mindless ecstasy the instant some sweating hulk hoists her over his head?

Eleven years ago, Antony Tudor gave this subgenre a soul with “The Leaves Are Fading” (music by Dvorak), creating a sense of emotional flow, of relationships passing through time, that made his sweetly rhapsodic duets and convivial ensembles not merely pretty but poignant.

The Wednesday performance by American Ballet Theatre in Shrine Auditorium reminded us of the integrity of Tudor’s achievement--especially in the central pas de deux, danced with immense tact by Leslie Browne and Robert Hill.

Browne’s emotional turbulence and refusal to yield immediately to romance heightened her interplay with Hill into a dramatic, suspenseful encounter. Her eventual, wholehearted acceptance of her feelings gained enormous force from this intelligent, detailed reticence, her carefully modulated dancing and Hill’s capable support.

The other couples--Cheryl Yeager and John Gardner, Christine Spizzo and Ty Granaroli, Ethan Brown and Kathleen Moore--didn’t achieve this remarkable complexity or depth, but they, too, danced the ballet with great warmth and loving care.

Yeager in particular moved with great lightness and freedom, qualities lacking in her curiously brittle, driven performance of “Donizetti Variations” on the same program.

Happily, Julio Bocca was in fine fettle opposite her. Nobody in Ballet Theatre puts more heart into showpiece choreography, and--for once--Bocca’s technical control equalled his daring (and ambition) almost to the very end.

“Paquita,” again danced by Martine van Hamel and Kevin McKenzie, completed the program.