Emperor penguins, you see, are singers—except for Mumble, who can’t sing for beans but whose feet just won’t keep still. And his feet, luckily for him, aren’t just any feet—they’re an animated, penguinized treatment of the feet of our most brilliant tapper, Savion Glover, who also provided the choreography. Glover is at his most accessible here, his most winning: Because he’s been morphed into a large bird, his usual glowering anti-audience attitude isn’t in evidence (ordinarily, he’s the Miles Davis of tap). This is tapping for the joy of it.

Happy Feet has many felicities. It’s beautifully designed, it’s frequently funny (especially the five Latino penguins, definitely not emperors, whose streetwise leader, Ramón, has the voice of Robin Williams), and it’s feel-goody without being nauseating. It manages to leaven a somewhat clichéd situation with a clever blend of young people’s music—hip-hop, rap, soul: Disney it isn’t. And it confirms what dance people have always known: Dancing liberates, heals, binds. When Mumble, jeered at by all those “normal” singing penguins, woos Gloria with his more and more assured tapping, and she begins to respond, you can’t help thinking of Fred wooing and winning a reluctant Ginger in the great “Night and Day” sequence of The Gay Divorcee. If you’re an Astaire, or a Glover, or a Mumble, dance can conquer all.

OTHER GOOD NEWS: The City Ballet opening-night gala, the usual grab bag of snippets, came up with some welcome surprises. Most tantalizingly, Christopher Wheeldon (who’s giving up his NYCB residency) cast Kathryn Morgan, a new girl—an apprentice—in the revival of his Carousel (A Dance). One of Wheeldon’s gifts is spotting new talent and trusting it. (He did it a couple of years ago at A.B.T. when he second-cast Sarah Lane in VIII.) The very young Morgan is simply the most persuasive lyrical dancer that City Ballet has unveiled in many years—she doesn’t show off and she doesn’t flirt with the audience; she’s just totally expressive and totally pleasing. Sure, we’ve hardly seen anything of her, but the signs of a major talent are there—and just in time, given that a new Romeo and Juliet is looming. Keep your fingers crossed.

Gala night also gave us the return, after a long absence due to ill health, of the odd but fascinating Janie Taylor, her long blond hair and native intensity intact. She turned up in a snatch of Peter Martins’ Ecstatic Orange, which I for one never needed to see again, but it was gratifying to have her restored to us, looking so sound. Also gratifying: the continuing progress of Maria Kowroski toward finally realizing her considerable talent. She was the heart of Middle Duet, the pas de deux by Alexei Ratmansky that was the lure that brought me almost directly from the airport (home from Paris) to the State Theater. Once again, Ratmansky shows a subtle and original musicianship: This piece is filled with witty tilts and off-balances and fascinating partnering (Albert Evans provided Kowroski with invaluable support) that suggests human connection rather than calculated ingenuity. For reasons known only to itself, City Ballet is not planning to repeat the Ratmansky during its regular season.

Middle Duet is eight years old, and it’s a worthy precursor to the other works by Ratmansky we’ve admired here: the Bolshoi’s The Bright Stream and City Ballet’s Russian Seasons. Who would have thought we’d be looking to the antediluvian Bolshoi (he’s the artistic director) to lead us out of the post-Balanchine doldrums? But that’s the tricky thing about choreographers: You can’t predict when they’ll turn up, or from where, and—alas—you can’t legislate them into existence.

FURTHER PROOF OF THAT SAD REALITY came with the world premiere, at the Paris Opéra, of a splashy new piece by Benjamin Millepied, the French-born New York City Ballet principal dancer who’s been choreographing all over the place for the past five years. He’s ambitious, he’s persistent and he’s trendy: Amoveo recycles sections of the Philip Glass–Robert Wilson Einstein on the Beach for its music, dresses its dancers in unattractive and unflattering costumes by Marc Jacobs, and as décor has a huge grid of constantly changing colors and patterns, by Paul Cox, hanging above the dancers. (Actually, it’s more interesting than the dance itself—a welcome distraction from the formulaic action.)

A sprinkling of City Ballet grandees turned up in Paris to support their boy, and they must have been pleased to see the Opéra giving Millepied the royal treatment, including two of its top étoiles, Aurélie Dupont and Nicolas Le Riche, as his leads. The ballet lasts 42 minutes and has enough real stuff in it for about five. Like so many Opéra stars, Dupont and Le Riche are superbly trained but, to me, uninteresting instruments. Twenty other dancers mill about. It’s all efficient, intelligent and pointless, confirming one’s view of Millepied’s work, based on various pieces he’s made in New York, as anonymous, derivative and anodyne. No, Virginia, there is no substitute for talent.

I’ll spare you descriptions of the other two ballets on the Opéra’s program, one by the Canadian Édouard Lock, and the other—White Darkness—by that omnipresent European threat Nacho Duato. But I feel I should confess that I was utterly baffled by Duato’s particles of white powder flooding down into golden pools of light while Marie-Agnès Gillot suffered. Only when the curtain came down and I turned to the program notes did I discover that it was all about drugs.

THE BEST FRENCH DANCE I’ve seen recently was back in New York, at the Joyce, where the talented Angelin Preljocaj presented two pieces: Empty Moves (Part 1) from 2004 and Noces, his signature work from 1989. Noces is, of course, set to the great Stravinsky score entrusted by Diaghilev to Bronislava Nijinska in 1923. Her version has never been, and never will be, surpassed—it’s a masterpiece—but Preljocaj has rethought it in an exciting and persuasive way. Nijinska’s peasant wedding rite has been superseded by a fierce struggle between men and women (there are five couples) in modern costume. Preljocaj imagines a modern hell, aggression and fury replacing solemnity and communal ritual. There are five white bridal dresses flung about and desecrated, five benches deployed as dangerous objects. The dancers hurl themselves at each other, repel each other, collapse in exhaustion on each other. (The central girl, Natacha Grimaud, in red, reminded me in her all-out attack and intensity of Paul Taylor’s wonderful Annmaria Mazzini.) This is a driven work, but its exploding energies are carefully structured and controlled.

Empty Moves is elegantly and coolly inventive. Two pairs of dancers shadow each other in slow, deliberate rearrangements and manipulations of legs and torsos, only occasionally switching partners or breaking free of the formal patterning. The “music” is a taped “sound performance” by John Cage, in which he articulates (or semi-articulates) words, syllables and noises while an audience shouts, taunts, laughs. Empty Moves may sound pretentious and arid, but it isn’t. In both these pieces, you sense from the first moment a serious artist with a voice of his own. Like Ratmansky, he’s an original, not a facsimile. Once again: There is no substitute for talent.

It takes place mostly in the dark (that’s how you know it’s Meaningful). There’s a tormented guy bare to the waist (I saw Edwaard Liang), who has a long, spasming solo mostly about his highly sculptural musculature. It’s not that he uses his torso to make an exhibition of himself, it’s that his torso is made an exhibition of. This extended passage holds your attention for about half its length.

The heart of the ballet is an extended duet between Jason Fowler and Maria Kowroski, that talented beauty whose career has puzzled so many of us (why hasn’t she grown?). Bigonzetti has brought her out and given us a new dancer: sexy, passionate, energized. The duet itself is carefully constructed, maintains its mood, isn’t too fussy or arty, and contains a number of inventive moments that stick in the mind—in other words, it’s a modern miracle. Eventually, all the dancers (the three principals and the eight in the corps) cross the stage in a twitching frieze (it’s still dark), then come forward, hands portentously outstretched to the audience—you get the picture. In Vento, says the program, “is humbly and passionately dedicated to Mr. Balanchine, my master and master of all my masters.” It’s a lovely if bewildering gesture.

Gala Night served up new ballets by the company’s chief choreographers, Peter Martins and Christopher Wheeldon—and what odd ballets to offer the off-the-shoulder crowd! Martins’ The Red Violin uses John Corigliano’s somewhat over-lush, broodingly romantic violin concerto to feature two couples and four demi-soloists in an extended lesson in coupling and partnering. He’s given us other partnering demonstrations before (no wonder—he himself was one of the world’s great partners), and the subject clearly fascinates him. This stuff wasn’t easy and seemed to slightly strain the red violin herself, Jennie Somogyi, recently back from a serious injury. It’s always wonderful to see her, dancing full out and expressively, but one couldn’t help worrying as she staunchly dealt with the intricacies and traps of the frequently one-handed partnering of Sébastien Marcovici. Martins’ new candidate for stardom, Sara Mearns (in blue), was the other ballerina, up to the task if somewhat cold and deliberate, and lacking Somogyi’s exceptional polish. Intelligently put together and at times evocative, this is one of Martins’ better recent ballets. Sometimes his dances look like pro forma exercises; in this one, he seemed personally invested.

Wheeldon did himself no favor in choosing Bartók’s third piano concerto as the music for his Evenfall. Balanchine disliked Bartók’s music, at least for ballet, and as usual he was right: This score is not exactly an invitation to the dance. And it’s particularly odd for a piece that presents itself (the girls in tutus) as classical. I suspect that what attracted Wheeldon was the mysterious quality of the second movement, which he uses to lovely effect, especially when the girls bend over, their wide tutus rising up behind them in silhouette against a romantic sky. There are beautiful passages throughout this movement. But what follows is a highly conventional and not very convincing finale that felt to me as if Wheeldon had lost interest (or run out of time) after that central section.

As a kind of palette-cleanser for the gala audience in between these two heavy offerings, the company came up with the pas de deux from William Forsythe’s Herman Schmerman, which is every bit as cute as its title. (Think stocky Albert Evans in a tiny yellow skirt.)

The fifth Diamond was a perplexing piece by former City Ballet principal dancer Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux. The music was by the company’s first composer in residence, Bright Sheng. There were his “Two Poems from the Sung Dynasty,” ardently and exhaustingly sung by Lauren Flanigan, plus sections from “Flute Moon”—and, indeed, the song of the flute was heard in the land, as well as a great deal of percussion. The title of this ballet—Two Birds with the Wings of One—doesn’t much help the viewer understand what’s happening. Suffice it to say that Sofiane Sylve, in basic red with (at different moments) black and white jackets, can’t seem to get together with Andrew Veyette. The music insists that something major is going on, but the choreography doesn’t let us know what it is. Sylve, as strong as ever, clearly has no idea what she’s supposed to be telling us, and sensibly echoes her performance in Firebird.

You can’t say that the Diamond Project has been a disappointment, since it would have been naïve to have had serious expectations for it. Besides, there are still two premieres to come. What’s heartening is that several important ballets that have been hung out to dry in recent seasons are looking better, either because of fresh casting or attention being paid. The relief of seeing Kowroski so elegant in Concerto Barocco after the recent Yvonne Borree travesties! Teresa Reichlen in Monumentum Pro Gesualdo—she’s both light and strong, and so musical—and Rebecca Krohn in Movements for Piano and Orchestra, with her crisp and witty attack (is she on her way to “Rubies”?) brought this Stravinsky double bill back to life. Joaquin De Luz was not only up to the technical challenges of Divertimento from “Le Baiser de la Fée” but gave it strong emotional life. Jenifer Ringer, so inadequate in Balanchine roles like Symphony in C’s first movement, was ravishing—and right—as the second girl in Fancy Free. Yes, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet was no less feeble than it was last season (though Ringer was marginally stronger), and Donizetti Variations looked closer to extinction than ever before—but all was redeemed by Liebeslieder Walzer.

This glorious work, which tells us everything about the waltz, about partnering, about Brahms, about love, about life, also gives the City Ballet’s senior ballerinas, Kyra Nichols and Darci Kistler, the chance to reveal their large talents without exposing their receding (or receded) technical prowess. Here, their maturity is not only appropriate but desirable. The extraordinary Wendy Whelan matches them for dramatic intensity, and although Miranda Weese doesn’t dance with comparable expansiveness, she’s assured enough to carry her role. Balanchine’s amazing powers of invention and profound human sympathies are never more evident than in this transcendent masterpiece. It’s an entire Diamond Project in itself.

It takes place mostly in the dark (that’s how you know it’s Meaningful). There’s a tormented guy bare to the waist (I saw Edwaard Liang), who has a long, spasming solo mostly about his highly sculptural musculature. It’s not that he uses his torso to make an exhibition of himself, it’s that his torso is made an exhibition of. This extended passage holds your attention for about half its length.

The heart of the ballet is an extended duet between Jason Fowler and Maria Kowroski, that talented beauty whose career has puzzled so many of us (why hasn’t she grown?). Bigonzetti has brought her out and given us a new dancer: sexy, passionate, energized. The duet itself is carefully constructed, maintains its mood, isn’t too fussy or arty, and contains a number of inventive moments that stick in the mind—in other words, it’s a modern miracle. Eventually, all the dancers (the three principals and the eight in the corps) cross the stage in a twitching frieze (it’s still dark), then come forward, hands portentously outstretched to the audience—you get the picture. In Vento, says the program, “is humbly and passionately dedicated to Mr. Balanchine, my master and master of all my masters.” It’s a lovely if bewildering gesture.

Gala Night served up new ballets by the company’s chief choreographers, Peter Martins and Christopher Wheeldon—and what odd ballets to offer the off-the-shoulder crowd! Martins’ The Red Violin uses John Corigliano’s somewhat over-lush, broodingly romantic violin concerto to feature two couples and four demi-soloists in an extended lesson in coupling and partnering. He’s given us other partnering demonstrations before (no wonder—he himself was one of the world’s great partners), and the subject clearly fascinates him. This stuff wasn’t easy and seemed to slightly strain the red violin herself, Jennie Somogyi, recently back from a serious injury. It’s always wonderful to see her, dancing full out and expressively, but one couldn’t help worrying as she staunchly dealt with the intricacies and traps of the frequently one-handed partnering of Sébastien Marcovici. Martins’ new candidate for stardom, Sara Mearns (in blue), was the other ballerina, up to the task if somewhat cold and deliberate, and lacking Somogyi’s exceptional polish. Intelligently put together and at times evocative, this is one of Martins’ better recent ballets. Sometimes his dances look like pro forma exercises; in this one, he seemed personally invested.

Wheeldon did himself no favor in choosing Bartók’s third piano concerto as the music for his Evenfall. Balanchine disliked Bartók’s music, at least for ballet, and as usual he was right: This score is not exactly an invitation to the dance. And it’s particularly odd for a piece that presents itself (the girls in tutus) as classical. I suspect that what attracted Wheeldon was the mysterious quality of the second movement, which he uses to lovely effect, especially when the girls bend over, their wide tutus rising up behind them in silhouette against a romantic sky. There are beautiful passages throughout this movement. But what follows is a highly conventional and not very convincing finale that felt to me as if Wheeldon had lost interest (or run out of time) after that central section.

As a kind of palette-cleanser for the gala audience in between these two heavy offerings, the company came up with the pas de deux from William Forsythe’s Herman Schmerman, which is every bit as cute as its title. (Think stocky Albert Evans in a tiny yellow skirt.)

The fifth Diamond was a perplexing piece by former City Ballet principal dancer Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux. The music was by the company’s first composer in residence, Bright Sheng. There were his “Two Poems from the Sung Dynasty,” ardently and exhaustingly sung by Lauren Flanigan, plus sections from “Flute Moon”—and, indeed, the song of the flute was heard in the land, as well as a great deal of percussion. The title of this ballet— Two Birds with the Wings of One—doesn’t much help the viewer understand what’s happening. Suffice it to say that Sofiane Sylve, in basic red with (at different moments) black and white jackets, can’t seem to get together with Andrew Veyette. The music insists that something major is going on, but the choreography doesn’t let us know what it is. Sylve, as strong as ever, clearly has no idea what she’s supposed to be telling us, and sensibly echoes her performance in Firebird.

You can’t say that the Diamond Project has been a disappointment, since it would have been naïve to have had serious expectations for it. Besides, there are still two premieres to come. What’s heartening is that several important ballets that have been hung out to dry in recent seasons are looking better, either because of fresh casting or attention being paid. The relief of seeing Kowroski so elegant in Concerto Barocco after the recent Yvonne Borree travesties! Teresa Reichlen in Monumentum Pro Gesualdo—she’s both light and strong, and so musical—and Rebecca Krohn in Movements for Piano and Orchestra, with her crisp and witty attack (is she on her way to “Rubies”?) brought this Stravinsky double bill back to life. Joaquin De Luz was not only up to the technical challenges of Divertimento from “Le Baiser de la Fée” but gave it strong emotional life. Jenifer Ringer, so inadequate in Balanchine roles like Symphony in C’s first movement, was ravishing—and right—as the second girl in Fancy Free. Yes, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet was no less feeble than it was last season (though Ringer was marginally stronger), and Donizetti Variations looked closer to extinction than ever before—but all was redeemed by Liebeslieder Walzer.

This glorious work, which tells us everything about the waltz, about partnering, about Brahms, about love, about life, also gives the City Ballet’s senior ballerinas, Kyra Nichols and Darci Kistler, the chance to reveal their large talents without exposing their receding (or receded) technical prowess. Here, their maturity is not only appropriate but desirable. The extraordinary Wendy Whelan matches them for dramatic intensity, and although Miranda Weese doesn’t dance with comparable expansiveness, she’s assured enough to carry her role. Balanchine’s amazing powers of invention and profound human sympathies are never more evident than in this transcendent masterpiece. It’s an entire Diamond Project in itself.

On opening night of the winter season-Tuesday, Nov. 26, a day that will live in infamy-there was a gala program of three new ballets to music by Richard Rodgers. The first was Land of Nod , by Robert La Fosse. A stagehand (Marco) falls asleep and dreams about dancing with a ballerina (Natalie). There's also Uh-Oh the Clown. The costumes were hideous, the story trite, the choreography shallow.

The second was a quick fix by Christopher Wheeldon to the "Carousel Waltz" from Carousel . It was called Carousel (A Dance) . Because Wheeldon is always professional, the piece made dance sense, but how long can you watch couples swirling around to the "Carousel Waltz"? He brought out a lyric quality in Alexandra Ansanelli, and he saw that Damian Woetzel's somewhat rascally charm is right for Billy. But the happy ending is inexplicable-though it fits this stretch of music, it's in conflict with the darkness of the original story. Imagine a Romeo and Juliet ballet that stopped after the Capulet ball. The "Carousel Waltz" belongs in Carousel .

Finally came Peter Martins' Thou Swell . Let's hope that this ballet may prove to be the nadir in City Ballet's downward spiral. There have been worse pieces-let's not forget Eliot Feld's Organon , for one-but not more scary ones, since it represents the sensibility of the head of the company. Thou Swell had not one redeeming feature, except the view of Maria Kowroski's legs peeking through her long skirt. The music was 16 songs by Rodgers and Hart, blatantly over-orchestrated by Paul Gemignani. All their wit and tenderness was gone-the music was poured over us like a thick soup. Of the two singers, Debbie Gravitte was the less offensive; I'm still trying to forget the sound of Jonathan Dokuchitz's over-miked bleatings.

The whole musical approach was pure 90's, so why go to the trouble of constructing a faux-30's nightclub? It featured cocktail tables, white steps, and a huge tilted mirror over the center of the stage that gave you a miniaturized back view of whatever was happening down below. There were also side mirrors, even more distracting. As for the costumes, Julius Lumsden-"New York City Ballet Artist in Residence"-created the ugliest, most inappropriate gowns for dancing I've ever seen on a stage: Worst off was poor Yvonne Borree, trapped in an unmanageable black and red schmatte.

The choreography presents one fatuous duet after another, plus a few pro forma group efforts and a mind-stopping moment when Nilas Martins took over at the onstage piano, for no reason and to no effect-well, I suppose you can't blame Papa for being proud of Sonny's musical talent. (For the record: The younger Martins has been trying harder this season.) Through two viewings of the endless Thou Swell , I couldn't discern a single interesting, let alone original, dance moment; it was pure vamp from start to finish. Meanwhile, the company goes on dancing the non-fail Rodgers/Balanchine Slaughter on 10th Avenue , once even on the same program with Thou Swell , to humiliating effect. And it's even more devastating to compare the Martins piece with the Gershwin/ Balanchine Who Cares? Thou Swell , by the way, cost City Ballet more than a quarter of a million dollars.

After this disastrous opening night, Nutcracker came and went. I saw a stale performance late in the six-week run, featuring the debut of the imported Sofiane Sylve as Sugarplum. (She's from France by way of the Het Nationale Ballet.) Sylve is an experienced and highly capable dancer-strong, vivid, self-assured-but she's no Sugarplum: She's all emphatic assertion. Later in the season in she came into her own, particularly as a knowing, brash Strip Tease Girl in Slaughter -a real Broadway Babe, she could step right into Chicago . Sylve also showed her stuff in Kammermusik No. 2 , paired in that juggernaut with Kowroski. At first, she seemed a touch behind the beat, not yet used to Balanchine's demands for go, go, go in allegro work. But once she got started, there was energy and flair-a standout performance. Not quite at home but certainly respectable as the Dark Angel in Serenade , lively and confident in Western Symphony , she's a gamble that's paid off.

The two senior ladies of the company were in pointed contrast. Darci Kistler was working hard-at times, alas, pushing. She held up in Serenade , but in the Suzanne Farrell role in RobertSchumann's"Davidsbündlertänze" she looked desperate, flailing around and flubbing the great solo. Even her hair is more golden these days than it ever was before. Kistler could still be effective if she'd only scale down her performances and accept her limitations.

Kyra Nichols, her senior, has grasped this fact of life, as she's grasped everything throughout her glorious career. Now in her 29th year on stage, she's back in some of her old roles. Not the gut-crunchers, but those that she can still carry with her aplomb, her command and, most important, her unerring musicality. Her performance in the adagio movement of Robbins' In G Major is a telling example of how supreme dance intelligence can overcome a diminution of physical powers: From the first moment to the last, her concentration was deep, her understanding of the arc of this very long duet was total. In the less interesting first and last movements-the usual Robbins cutenesses, as the corps prance and jog on the beach-she seemed a visitor from another world, as indeed she was: It's unlikely that anyone on stage except her partner, Philip Neal, had been born when she made her debut in 1974. Let's hope they've learned something from her. (Her Mozartiana was another astounding example of her focused powers.)

The one dancer who has learned from her-and in so many ways resembles her-is Jennie Somogyi, who proved to be the light at the end of the tunnel, the dawn after the darkness and the silver lining to a lot of clouds. This season, the casting has acknowledged her unique qualities: We saw her in Symphony in Three Movements , Western Symphony (I wish they'd freshen up her costume), Serenade , Who Cares? . She's the first dancer in years-since Nichols, in fact-to understand the first movement of Symphony in C ; she's even cleaned up her beats. But she's also moved triumphantly into the more romantic ballets, for which her intense musicality and her expansive movement are so suitable. In the Heather Watts role in Davidsbündlertänze , she gave a revelatory performance, deeply felt and thrillingly danced; the whole balance of the ballet changed. She was equally fine in the revival of Robbins' Piano Pieces , a ballet that looked not much more than O.K. when it premiered in 1981, but that shines forth like a good deed in a bad world after the recent epidemic of disastrous new works. Ansanelli was particularly pleasing in her complicated solo, and Kowroski's beauty and delicacy registered, but Somogyi-again in a Nichols role-was a miracle of strength and passion.

So City Ballet has at last found and recognized a true classical ballerina, one whose glamour is of the right kind-it lies in her dancing, not her mannerisms or her hair or her smile. It's been years since there's been such a phenomenon on the company's stage. Wendy Whelan is an exemplary worker and a formidable dancer, but when she takes on the big classical roles, like the Second Movement of Symphony in C , she's like a brilliant impersonator. (It would be instructive to see her and Somogyi switch roles in this ballet.) Whelan tries very hard in the current revival of Balanchine's rather dull Ballade , a work to Fauré, all French style and perfume, which he made for Merrill Ashley during his long campaign to turn her into a romantic ballerina. Whelan approached it intelligently and did everything right, as she always does, but she was ultimately less effective than Jenifer Ringer, who is nowhere near as compelling a dancer, but whose softness and femininity suit Ballade better. Ringer, on the other hand, presided over a sadly lackluster Raymonda Variations .

Then there's Kowroski, who has every kind of glamour, but doesn't have the power to handle the biggest roles. And there's Miranda Weese, back after a long absence; nothing has changed-she remains a strong, useful and unimaginative technician. Still, with Somogyi at last in place, Ansanelli finding her way, Janie Taylor rampaging impressively around the stage in her oddly joyless way-she even managed to introduce a touch of neurosis to Who Cares? -and Carla Körbes waiting in the wings, we can begin to breathe more easily. But not too easily. The dull, unmusical Abi Stafford gave the most dispirited performance of Square Dance within memory.

It was good to see that the two best works from last year's ghastly Diamond Project-Wheeldon's Morphoses and Albert Evans' Haiku -looked stronger standing on their own than they did in that depressing atmosphere. This season, if you carefully picked your way through the minefield of all the Martins ballets-more than 10 of them!-and the Bigonzettis and the Taylor-Corbetts, and if you tracked the casting with an experienced eye, you could find happiness at the New York City Ballet. Let's pray it's not a false dawn.

This is the season, then, that saw Jenifer Ringer, Jennie Somogyi, Alexandra Ansanelli and Janie Taylor graduated into responsibility, with varying results. Ringer remains a pleasing lyrical dancer with a pretty face and an endearing manner, but she's suddenly being put forward as a major Balanchine classicist: In the last week of the season, she attempted the Midsummer Night's Dream pas de deux, a role whose delicacy and tricky shifts of balance register properly only when they rest on unassailable strength. But Ringer, however charming, is underpowered, and this far into her career-13 years with the company already-she's not likely to get much stronger. The problem manifested itself even more tellingly in Theme and Variations , a role that ruthlessly exposes technical weakness. Ringer just doesn't have the requisite clarity and articulation, the easy unmannered command; she looked blurred, almost doughy. She's not as overmatched in Raymonda Variations , but in the McBride role in Who Cares? ("The Man I Love," "Fascinatin' Rhythm") she was pallid and nervous in her first performance, somewhat more vibrant in her second, but still light-years away from McBride's playful assurance.

The company does have a brilliant Balanchine classicist in Somogyi. She's admirable in the daunting First Movement of Symphony in C , except for underdeveloped beats in the supported lifts, and in Who Cares? ("Embraceable You," "My One and Only") she's the one you can't take your eyes off, she rips into the steps with such bold joy. A company's values-and its capacity to nurture dancers-can usually be understood through its casting policies, so what does it mean that Somogyi wasn't given Theme and Variations ? Do they dislike her can-do attitude? Her look? Do they think she can't prosper in the big Tchaikovsky roles? Don't they remember how Balanchine nursed Merrill Ashley from her brilliant allegro persona-by way of Emeralds -into Swan Lake and Diamonds ? At the moment, it's hard to avoid the impression that Somogyi is being ghettoized.

Ansanelli is so hard-working, so hungry to dance, so intelligent that it's easy to forgive her less-than-regal physique and her tendency to push too hard. She was vivid and convincing in the "Voices of Spring" section of Vienna Waltzes , she was quickly at home in the Stravinsky Violin Concerto after a shaky first performance, and she made a brave stab at the lead in Divertimento No. 15 , but she's so modern and aggressive that it's hard to imagine her exerting traditional ballerina authority. Yet consider how Wendy Whelan has extended herself these last years. Her latest triumph of will and hard work was the Dream pas de deux, where her problem has been the exact opposite of Ringer's: She has the powerful technique that Ringer lacks, but it's taken her years to find the lyricism, the poise, needed for this incomparably subtle choreography. What Whelan has taught herself is how to compensate for her essentially unclassical body and her jagged attack. It's as if she's imagined herself into being a Balanchine classicist; by her third Dream of the season, she was strikingly lovely, a word rarely used to describe her. And you can see the same transformation taking place as she gradually conquers Mozartiana . Whelan, like Ashley before her, has slowly earned her central place in the company; whatever her peculiarities, she's become indispensable.

Young Janie Taylor is a talented enigma. She has buoyant energy and a huge jump, and she takes risks, but who is she? She's being offered large chunks of the repertory, and she tears into roles, but she never looks as if she's enjoying herself, so how can we enjoy her? So far she's dancing behind a veil. And this is all too true of many City Ballet dancers these days: technical facility combined with a near-total lack of expressivity. (Miranda Weese blazed this trail.)

The major exception among the younger girls is Carla Körbes, still in the corps. Until she suffered a serious injury to her foot a few seasons back, she was on the fast track, but this season she was used only sporadically: extraordinarily beautiful and moving (as a last-minute substitute) in the Elegy from Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3 ; full of feeling as Helena in Dream . A few seasons ago, with Kistler injured, she was successfully rushed into the role of Titania, but it was withheld from her this year-seniority rules. So how is an important talent like hers supposed to grow? Körbes is so ardently responsive to music that it's hard to imagine Balanchine waiting so long to propel her into prominence. Think of Darci Kistler: Balanchine handed her Swan Lake and Symphony in C almost before she had set foot onstage. Peter Martins was recklessly (and rightly) swift with Maria Kowroski, but her career exposes another of the company's problems: Except in a few roles, she hasn't developed; she's the same gorgeous question mark she was at the beginning. And now the single most talented girl of the past 20 years, Monique Meunier, is leaving City Ballet-where she's been a hapless principal-to become a soloist at A.B.T. We'll soon see whether her bewildering failure to emerge as a great dancer reflects her own problems or the company's.

Matters are equally precarious with the men. Peter Boal is nearing the end of his distinguished career-still a paragon, stylish and elegant, but slightly diminished. Damian Woetzel, in his 17th year onstage, puts on his usual good show, but his virtuosity is beginning to fray: His Oberon was surprisingly lackluster. Jock Soto is a magnificent partner-he's spent most of the past 21 years valiantly lugging Heather Watts, Kistler and Whelan around the stage-but he does not present a pretty picture: He and Whelan in the Dream pas de deux looked like a role-reversed Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat. Nilas Martins-Peter's son-was out the entire season with a foot injury, thus sparing us another season of embarrassment. Nicolaj Hübbe flings himself generously into things, but he has no real direction or identifiable repertory; he seems marginalized. Tall, rangy Charles Askegard-newly married to Candace Bushnell-is an appealing oddball, hardly a danseur noble . In a wholesale promotion designed to shore up the male contingent, Benjamin Millepied, Sébastien Marcovici and James Fayette were all made principals; we shall see. No, A.B.T. is where the boysare-including,ofcourse,the great one who got away from City Ballet, Ethan Stiefel.

And then, in a late June Dream , everything came together. The Titania was Kowroski, and this is her quintessential role. Not only does it display her radiant beauty and her extraordinary expansiveness, it also confirms that she is happiest onstage when given something to "act." With her lush, deep penchées, her beautifully shaped lifts, her easy swing from mood to mood, she inevitably reminds you of Suzanne Farrell without making you miss her. Kowroski, however, was third-cast in Dream . First-cast was Kistler, once so glorious in this role, now, alas, a touch matronly and creaky. But her husband is Peter Martins, and who can argue with that? We can, however, argue the claims of seniority and greatness: Kyra Nichols was second -cast (her calm majesty carried her through). Even so, Titania is now Ms. Kowroski's role, and only nepotism plus a kind of civil-service mentality could have kept her waiting in the wings.

Kowroski'sOberon,Benjamin Millepied, is closer to the elegant Helgi Tomasson than to the explosive Edward Villella (on whom the role was made). Millepied's beats-basic to Oberon's vocabulary-are shallow and unexciting, but his manner is pleasing, and he and Kowroski certainly make a handsome young pair. Somogyi, the Hippolyta, had the audience roaring with excitement: Her fouettés-the step that defines this role-are thrilling in their impact, not just the usual boring trick. The young lovers, particularly Ringer, were appealing. Taylor was a whirlwind of a butterfly, if a little tall for the role. The dozens of children were superbly coached-dancing hard, cuteness kept to a minimum. Perhaps most important, the company's impressive new music director, Andrea Quinn, who has been specializing in the modern repertory,conductedthegreatMen-delssohn score in a way that retained its dancy lightness and charm yet brought out its symphonic implications. The whole evening was as enchanted as Shakespeare's"forestoutside Athens"-a blessed antidote to so much that had gone wrong earlier in the season.

More on City Ballet next week.