I was eagerly anticipating the appearance, the first this season, of Kyra Nichols in Jerome Robbins' In the Night last Friday. Although filled with challenging partnering, In the Night doesn't require technical brilliance; its effect comes more from how well a dancer can model the changing moods Robbins evokes. It seemed a good vehicle for Nichols, City Ballet's last dancer, with Darci Kistler, from the days of Balanchine. Having joined in 1974, Nichols has reached a point in her career where her technique is a more fickle visitor than her muse, and yet she still reminds us that even the slightest gesture can speak volumes, and that in admonishing his dancers to "just do the steps," Balanchine trained generations to show us the wordless meanings of movement.

Created in 1970, for three couples dancing to four of Chopin's familiar Nocturnes, In the Night is often seen as a coda to Robbins' 1969 masterpiece, Dances at a Gathering, also to Chopin. There are, indeed, similarities, as Robbins also uses duets to explore relationship in Dances, but while Dances has a tone of contemplative, nostalgic reflection, In the Night is bursting with juicy, romantic extravagance. It's hard to imagine any couple from Dances at this ball; they're too nice, and too subdued.

The curtain rises on a black backdrop strewn with starry pinpricks of light, by Jennifer Tipton. Offstage to the left, Cameron Grant plays (marvelously), Rachel Rutherford and Tyler Angle enter, in Anthony Dowell's silvery-gray costumes which evoking nineteenth-century ballroom attire. (In the Night's men all wear short jackets; the women gowns.) You can easily imagine they've slipped out onto a veranda for a moment's privacy. It's not hard to peg this couple as Robbins' Young Lovers; in their swoopy mutual infatuation, they spring apart to the corners of the stage needing little more justification than their joy at flinging themselves once more into each others' arms. Rutherford's beauty and assurance contrasted with Angle's occasional lack of ease. Debuting here, the tall and elegant Angle didn't always make Robbins' tricky partnering requirements look as natural and effortless as they might, as in one instance where Angle had to run towards Rutherford, finish by sliding up to her on his knees downstage of her, then reach up with one hand to support Rutherford through a penchée and other poses by gripping her upper arm from below. Hard indeed, and it looked it.

The second couple, Nichols with Philip Neal, both in brown, are more content and relaxed with each other, with romantic ardor cooling to a calm acceptance. Here Nichols could give free rein to her nonpareil musicality, and her infinitely nuanced port de bras. This duet's signature moment comes when Neal lifts Nichols aloft, holding her arrow-straight body completely upside-down, as one of her feet flutters in little serrés against the other, both pointing skyward. While a somewhat similar moment in Balanchine's Episodes, which preceded In the Night on Friday's program, has a jarring air of unreality, Robbins' upside-down lift becomes a metaphor for this couple's mutual trust and support. We see it again at the duet's end, where Neal hoists Nichols to a kneeling position on his shoulder, and, as he carries her offstage, she unfurls both arms and a leg, as if flying in slow motion.

Wendy Whelan and Sebastien Marcovici (another debut) were the third couple. This is, by far, the most tumultuous pairing. While Rutherford and Angle broke apart for the joy of returning, Whelan and Marcovici can't seem to live with or without each other. At one point, she abandons him, running off into the wings as he stands, motionless and shocked, until she comes charging back onstage. Later, he returns the favor, leaving her to sobbing devastation. Still later, in a moment that's both telling and silly, they both run off, leaving an empty stage. Dowell puts the woman here in a long black gown, with a rose-red underskirt and lining. The couple's clinches and lifts aren't conventionally romantic and they're seldom in sync emotionally; Whelan clings to Marcovici; he flings her in cartwheels over his shoulder, and the red lining of her dress flashes like sudden anger, or passion. With this couple, it's hard to tell the difference; they seem to love their sturm und drang as much as each other. They reach a resolution, however fleeting, in the unforgettable moment when Whelan prostrates herself before a motionless Marcovici. She stands before him, walking her hands down him, touching his chest, thighs, shins, feet, as if to assure herself he's really there. She ends on her knees, head to the stage, with her palms up before her, waiting. In forgiveness, love or passion, he pulls her to her feet, and swirls her about the stage as they're united, at least for a moment.

As is her wont, Whelan was breathtaking; few dancers can encompass the stage with a sweep of an arm or leg as she does, and her abasement before Marcovici was heartbreaking. He brooded and smoldered to perfection, looking sometimes like he couldn't quite decide to kiss her or hurl her into the orchestra pit.

Lasting all of twenty-five minutes, In the Night might seem a bit lightweight compared with the monumental Dances at a Gathering, yet its simplicity gives it a sharper focus, and, while Robbins' devices sometimes seem as calculated as they are deft, such is the essence of theatricality, and what else would you expect, or want, from Jerome Robbins? By the time the three couples join together in a brief, subdued finale (with hints of their preceding duets bubbling to the surface), we feel we know these couples intimately, as well we should, for at one time or another we've been part of each and every one. In Robbins' hands, this starry sky is as much a mirror as the one in Afternoon of a Faun, except this one is pointing straight at us.

The program concluded with Christopher Wheeldon's wan An American in Paris, which I'll review another time.

Angle, Marcovici, Neal, Nichols, Rutherford, Whelan