City Ballet Ends Its Season With a Prayer and a Romantic Romp

The fall season wrapped up with an excellent program featuring works by Balanchine and Ratmansky, as well as a celebration of Justin Peck’s 10th year as resident choreographer.

There is a time for dancing, and there is a time for applause. Sometimes they happen concurrently, but that isn’t ideal. George Balanchine, the founding choreographer of New York City Ballet, viewed the theater as a church. “You don’t applaud in the middle of a sermon or choral hymn,” he was quoted as saying in a book about the making of “Mozartiana,” his last major work.

That would apply to the opening of“Mozartiana,” created for the Tchaikovsky Festival in 1981. (Balanchine died two years later.) Set to Suite No. 4, Tchaikovsky’s arrangement and orchestration of several short works by Mozart, the ballet begins with a “preghiera,” or a prayer. It’s soulful, like a quietly shimmering dance hymn; the dancer even lifts her arms in prayer.

At the opening, a female principal, originally Suzanne Farrell, is surrounded by four young dancers, tiny versions of herself. The arrangement instantly settles the space. “Like picture — still, like in a church,” Balanchine said.

“Mozartiana,” which returned to City Ballet’s repertory this fall, led this season’s finest program, “Balanchine + Ratmansky,” like a ray of light. It’s a gorgeous ballet full of sadness, delicacy and vivacity. At the start of “Mozartiana,” the lead dancer rises en pointe to perform close-knitted bourrée steps. As she glides along, she seems like a vision: dancing on air.

With young students sharing the stage with professionals, “Mozartiana” also demonstrates how ballet is passed from one generation to the next, not through technology but through dedicated bodies and rigorous training. Over years dancers learn how to make the impossible not just possible but natural. Mira Nadon, in her debut as the lead, didn’t overdo it — she danced her age, her story, her “Mozartiana.”

Nadon, coached by Farrell, was remarkable. The open innocence of her preghiera was heart-stopping, and in her variations, she was both assertive and free of mannerism, quickening her footwork as the music brightened, moving her arms lushly and daringly leaning past safety whenever there was a moment of breath in a musical note. Near the beginning, she pushed a balance so far that she crumbled onto the floor and popped right up again, unfettered. It was like a cloud lifted.