BALLET REVIEW : Gathering of Robbins Works in Orange County

Next month Los Angeles will catch up with a snazzy show--it’s really an anthology--called “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway.” In a sense, however, Orange County got there first.

The triple bill presented at Segerstrom Hall on Thursday by the New York City Ballet didn’t deal directly, of course, in musical-comedy diversion. It offered no slapstick chases in high-button shoes, no nuptial rituals from folksy Anatevka, no wired kiddies enjoying a flash-in-the-Pan flight over old London.

Still, there were rumbles.

Robbins, now a grand old man of 70, has always exulted in a canny fusion of show-biz allure and high art. The best of his ballets have, of course, stressed the latter at the expense of the former.

“Dances at a Gathering,” the centerpiece in Orange County, is one of the best ones. Created in 1969 for a unique collection of stellar personalities--Allegra Kent, Sara Leland, Kay Mazzo, Patricia McBride, Violette Verdy, John Clifford and Edward Villella among them--it deftly fuses romantic ardor with modern whimsy.

Robbins, ever sensitive to musical impulse, managed to isolate the poetic essence of 18 piano pieces by Chopin. Then he created an elegantly subtle suite around them, toying with abstract mysteries--some poignant, some wistful, all clever.

The choreographer has always denied programmatic content. “There are no stories to any of the dancers,” he declared in a rather prickly 1972 memo. “There are no plots and no roles. The dancers are themselves dancing with each other to that music in that space.”

Perhaps.

The framework remains strict. It must. The action scheme is dictated by the forms at hand: mazurkas, waltzes, etudes, a gently comical scherzo and, most idyllic, a dreamy nocturne.

Within these structural confines, however, Robbins musters nostalgic odes and passionate set pieces, rhapsodic duets and intricate ensembles. All of them look like dramatic improvisations. The look, of course, is deceptive.

The current production may lack the striking character definitions we took for granted in the good old days. It is exquisitely danced, however, by a cast that obviously savors ensemble values.

The virtuosity was delicately balanced on Thursday, and carefully muted. The shifting moods were sensitively articulated.

Most compelling among the generally compelling participants was Merrill Ashley (precisely sensual as the girl in green), Maria Calegari (suavely lyrical as the girl in mauve), Kyra Nichols (a model of linear purity as the girl in pink). The quintet of gently assertive cavaliers was dominated by Robert LaFosse (in his element as the dashing boy in brown), Jock Soto (brooding with muscular fervor as the boy in purple) and Damian Woetzel (oozing youthful bravado as the boy in brick).

His piano distantly stationed at stage-right, Jerry Zimmerman surmounted the challenge of the Chopin marathon with prosaic efficiency.

The program opened cutely and quaintly with “Fanfare,” a 1953 piece d’occasion intended to commemorate the coronation of Elizabeth II. This cartoon ballet, predicated on Benjamin Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” juggles old-fashioned ballet satire with newfangled narrative gimmickry.

While a courtly Elizabethan (Steve Irish, on this occasion) recites Eric Crozier’s text in orotund, patently fake British tones, the dancers literally impersonate instruments. Color coded, they assume presumably appropriate emotive stances and execute the contrapuntal maneuvers specifically dictated by the score.

The best moments involve some brass bullies reducing a corps of mock swans to a mass of quivering arms and hands, and a percussion trio that delivers a burlesque routine of inspired if hackneyed goofiness. It is all good, tired fun. It also seems a bit self-conscious and arch.

The City Ballet cast, mostly selected from the junior contingent, danced the petty fanfares with deadpan grandeur worthy of Petipa at his most exalted. Hugo Fiorato conducted the New Yorkers in the pit with elegant brio.

“Gershwin Concerto,” which closed the program, dates back only to 1982. A plotless funky-jazzy period piece, it looks older.

Robbins clarified the vulgarity of the Concerto in F brilliantly. He could do nothing, alas, to ennoble it. The slick little ballet, like the score, teeters from honest sentiment to popsy posturing to vapid bombast.

Santo Loquasto has dressed it strikingly, the soloists in white practice clothes and the corps in garish orange and purple. The contrasting duties of the central quartet evolve from a unifying expressive device: slinky insinuation masking classical ritual.

Maria Calegari phrased the protagonist’s solos with sharp attack and fleet eloquence. Melinda Roy provided a carefully gauged, sweetly jaunty contrast. Kipling Houston and Philip Neal served competently as potential sex-objects--the former suave and the latter aggressive.

Richard Moredock was the soft but stylish piano soloist in the loud but vibrant pit.

And now, “West Side Story.”