Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Sara Adams

A winning mixed bill at New York City Ballet, featuring three stylistically and conceptually very different works, yielded many gems. 

An uneven performance with mishaps and mis-pairings, yet still offering some outstanding individual interpretations.

An evening of George Balanchine’s joyous, kitschy send-ups, with clever parodies of Petipa ballets.

When she retires next week, part of me likes to think she’s not really retiring. She’s just decided to stay in the Land of Sweets.

 The melancholy ending was a fitting farewell between ballerina and ballet. The heartmelting, beautiful Duo Concertant alone was worth the entire price of admission.

The fall season opens with three Balanchine ballets and what felt like a gesture of thanks to a trio of ballerinas for their many years of service to the company.

The NYCB dancers are very at-home in this idiom, and they threw themselves wholeheartedly into this ballet. It was never less than watchable, but the music cried out for more avante-garde choreography than Peck provided.

Judging by the enthusiastic audience reactions to this program one might have to rethink the modern/ballet divide. Maybe there’s only two types of dance – good dance and bad dance. 

Whatever your taste in ballet, this program probably had it: Wheeldon's DGV meets Balanchine's Door and a Sigh and Raymonda Variations.