DANCE REVIEW : Balanchine, De Ribere and Tomasson Works by S.F. Ballet

When George Balanchine choreographed “Serenade” in 1935, he was as far away in time from the era of Imperial Russian classicism (one of his reference points) as Lisa de Ribere is from the World War II home front depicted in her new ballet “Harvest Moon.”

Of course, Balanchine had more on his mind than nostalgia, but San Francisco Ballet certainly heightened this element in his work by programming “Serenade” with De Ribere’s ballet--and with two new Helgi Tomasson evocations of the past.

The War Memorial Opera House was nearly full on Friday for this evening of neo-classicism, neo-Romanticism and neo-jitterbug. No ballet company ever went broke by insulating its audience from the present.

For all its inconclusive dithering with pointe-work, “Harvest Moon” proved essentially a Hubbard-style pop showpiece in which young dancers played characters out of old movies. A mirrored ballroom set by Robin Wagner and witty costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge created the proper wartime ambience. However, just as she stylized ‘40s social dances, De Ribere (formerly a soloist with American Ballet Theatre) idealized her milieu with such dream-anachronisms as inter-racial couples.

Classic Glenn Miller Orchestra arrangements of such ‘40s standards as “Moonlight Serenade” and “In the Mood” sounded perfectly idiomatic under conductor Denis de Coteau, but De Ribere’s dances looked locked-down, finicky, desiccated-- very long ago and far away, despite the remarkable skill, energy and charm of Joanna Berman, Anthony Randazzo, Christopher Boatwright and Antonio Castilla, among others.

Berman and Randazzo also dominated the new Tomasson pieces--she as the serene prima ballerina of “Con Brio” (a quintet inspired by 19th-Century dance lithographs) and he as the charismatic partner of Evelyn Cisneros in “Valses Poeticos” (an intimate, mercurial duet choreographed to early piano music by Granados).

Both works offered exactly what Tomasson does best: glorify his dancers through refined and often inventive classicism. How could you not love Berman, Cynthia Drayer and Elizabeth Loscavio after their sweet, elegant, quicksilver performances in “Con Brio”? How could you resist Cisneros at her most sensuous and emotionally vulnerable in “Valses Poeticos”? Or Randazzo, so passionately absorbed in his partner that the audience didn’t seem to exist?

Michael McGraw played the Granados suite sensitively, De Coteau gave the undistinguished Drigo music for “Con Brio” as much care as the Tchaikovsky score for “Serenade,” and lighting by Nicholas Cernovitch enforced the sharpest possible distinction between the brio and the poetico .

The revival of “Serenade” represented one of the major achievements of the Tomasson directorate: a staging that renewed the work’s masterpiece status with faultless taste and devotion while showing the San Francisco Ballet women’s corps at its most radiant.

Yes, perhaps, you could find more soulful performances of the “fallen angel” role than Sabina Allemann’s pure if remote interpretation on Friday, but Pascale Leroy (the possessive “dark angel”) and, especially, Yuri Zhukov (the man caught between these women) danced at the highest possible level of artistry.

Forget nostalgia: Balanchine is alive and well in San Francisco. . . .