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Saratoga Springs itself is anything but forgotten, with its treasure-troves of 19th and early 20th-century houses restored to glittering splendor, and enormous condo developments springing up on every unused parcel of land, it seems.

Despite some recent stormy relations which culminated in the ouster of SPAC's former president, Saratoga has been City Ballet's summer home for forty years, and July wouldn't be July here without sightings of company members turning the town into Columbus Avenue North, and partaking of the many watering holes and, more importantly, the one remaining thrift shop, the charmingly disheveled Reruns, run by my high-school classmate, Stuart. My visits home to Saratoga present endless opportunities for waxing nostalgic, most of which I'll spare you, except to note that City Ballet and Stars became an essential part of every summer. The big news of this summer's all-too-short three-week season, other than that it's the company's first in thirty-three years without the great Kyra Nichols (more on that soon), is that it's the company's first look (and mine) at the renovations New York State has made to SPAC's venerable and aging semi-outdoor theater.

Or, rather, that's what would have been the big news of the season, had not Nilas Martins managed to get himself arrested in the wee hours of Tuesday morning here for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. According to various newspaper accounts, he was arrested when a local police officer spotted Martins acting suspiciously in his parked BMW, attempting to kick something under his seat. Upon investigation, according to reports, said something turned out to be a baggie containing half a gram of cocaine. Martins was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and released on bail pending a further hearing set for Friday. Although New York State has draconian penalties for the possession and sale of certain drugs, including cocaine, it appears that the relatively small amount in Martins' possession would spare him the possibility of facing a long prison sentence. Martins was scheduled to dance Apollo at the July 4th performance, but was replaced with Charles Askegard, who knew the role, but had never danced it with City Ballet.

So, back to the dance review, already in progress.

It was a rainy and soggy Fourth, but spirits at SPAC seemed quite undampened. As I descended the steps into the huge theater, I was a bit surprised that the ushers didn't prevent me from carrying in my cup of takeout coffee. I quickly saw the potential reason: all of SPAC's ancient, durable hard plastic seats had been replaced with new models, complete with padded bottoms and, amazingly enough, built-in cupholders, so between sips my large Dunkin' Donuts special had a cozy place to nestle, leaving my hands free to wield my binoculars or other hardware. The new seats are a light forest green, and the massive sound baffles on either side of the amphitheater have been painted to match, and all go well with the views of SPAC's lawn, and the surrounding trees, that can be seen through the various openings in the theater's framework.

First on the program was Balanchine's ever-delightful Raymonda Variations. Set to familiar bits of the eponymous Glazunov ballet, Raymonda Variations has a deceptively saccharine exterior, what with the sugary score's tinkling harps, and the cotton-candy pinks and blues of Karinska's charmingly old-fashioned costumes. But beneath the ballet's pretty exterior are the heart and sinews of a tiger, as it contains some of Balanchine's most difficult inventions in the classical style, and a rousing finale where the corps girls reveal themselves, however briefly, to be mighty Amazons beneath their flowery pink tulle and satin. For the Fourth, the leads were Megan Fairchild and Joaquin de Luz. As is often the case in this pairing of a diminutive ballerina with an even-more-so partner, De Luz's shortness led to some iffy moments in their particularly intricate adagio. If Fairchild holds her arm straight above her head, De Luz simply isn't tall enough to reach her wrist, so she must hold her arm almost forty-five degrees out from vertical so that De Luz can properly hold her arm. Not only does this distort Fairchild's line, but it also can leave her scarily off-balance and in need of rescue for some particularly tricky bits, as happened occasionally last night. Needless to say, there was little chemistry between the two last night, as Fairchild's unchanging smile verged on a grimace, and De Luz seemed most intently focused on Not Screwing Up while looking princely.

Not surprisingly, it was in their respective solos, where each could take their destiny into his or her own hands (or feet) that the pair shone. Fairchild, a very competent but often metronomic technician relaxed enough to flirt with Glazonov's beats in a solo Balanchine might well have considered a treatise on the various ways a ballerina might lyrically turn into, and while holding, an arabesque. Her big, dreamy pique turns into arabesque were a happy, lush surprise, although elsewhere in her taxing role, especially the ballet's conclusion, where she leads the corps in what should be a rousing series of kick-step battements, she seemed to either lose steam or retreat mentally into some calm inner place perhaps not quite ideally suited for delivering one of Balanchine's patented slam-bang finales. In other places she showed an alarming penchant for flinging her arms about like sticks; as with a few other of City Ballet's notable women, it seems her technique's backslid a bit in the past year or so. On the other hand, De Luz was sheer brilliance in his solos, especially his first, brutally hard one, where Balanchine seemed to consider Bluebird's brisé volées to be a mere connective step between really difficult complications, all delivered with De Luz's winning smile and insouciant flips of his flying cowlick, all to screams of delight from the ballet students from various area summer programs who occupied SPAC's cheap(er) seats.

The demi girls' solos (the "Variations" of the ballet's title) were all beautifully danced. Faye Arthurs was lovely and especially strong in her solo which concluded with traveling hops in arabesque on pointe, all the while smiling and gently changing her port de bras. While years ago this solo gave her trouble, now her back leg never strayed from perfectly horizontal. Abi Stafford, who's seemed in the past year to have discovered a real joy in dancing, flew happily through her own solo with its frighteningly hard concluding multiple pirouettes, and Sara Mearns again showed how intoxicating the combination of power and strength in a big girl who's not afraid of dancing big can be, all to Raymonda's divine harp solo. Ana Sophia Scheller, while a bit behind her music to start, and Alina Dronova, in a very songbird-fairy-ish solo were also both delights.

Unfortunately, the rest of the corps, and the ballet's big ensemble sections, didn't show so much polish. As with the ballet's performances this spring at the State Theater, there were moments the dancers seemed a bit unsure of where to be, and when. Worse, key group parts lost their focus, especially my favorite part of the rip-roaring coda, where the corps girls fly out of the upstage right and downstage left corners, hopping in arabesques voyagees, before aligning themselves and delivering in unison a couple of mammoth echappes to a deeply seated second before snapping their legs back into a tight releve in fifth. It's a fleeting moment, but so perfectly telling. That squat into second, and the snap recovery, is so antithetical to the prettiness of what's come before, it's as if Balanchine's winking at us, and pulling away, for just an instant, the tulle veil, as if to say, "See, look how strong my girls are!"

Or that's what that moment should've and would've been saying, if it hadn't been thrown away by the willing, but underrehearsed and undercoached dancers. Nonetheless, the ballet's conclusion, where De Luz snatched Fairchild out of mid-air as she hurled herself into what otherwise would've been a one-way trip into the orchestra pit, was perfectly timed and as much of a thrill as ever.

Despite the last-minute drama and casting changes, Apollo was surprisingly successful, with the very tall and blond Askegard giving a credible reading of the young god's voyage from adolescence to maturity. Given the short notice he received, he can be forgiven for some occasional fuzzy moments (he had particular trouble with Apollo's tricky pirouette in attitude front down to his knees, leading into the finger-touch with Terpsichore that begins their duet), and a certain thematic lack of clarity, as his Apollo seemed to lurch between incipient nobility and wild impetuosity almost at random, until the horn call from Olympus seemed to snap him out of it; so as a narrative his portrayal needs some work. On the other hand, he was a perfect foil for the Terpsichore of his longtime partner, Maria Kowroski. At well over six feet, Askegard looked right when paired with the leggy and hyper-flexible Kowroski, and the penultimate pose of their duet, the "swimming lesson" drew some well-deserved cheers. Askegard's muses, Kowroski as well Jennie Somogyi's Polyhymnia and Rachel Rutherford's Callipe, were all strong and particularly moving. Kowroski lately seems to be finding her own voice, after years of being used as an ersatz (and more flexible) Suzanne Farrell; a great dance comedienne, she does better emphasizing Terpsichore's wild and unbridled moments than her gravitas.
 

Although certain members of the audience braving the rather water-logged lawn felt the need to anticipate the traditional Fourth of July celebrations by firing off the occasional mid-performance firecracker (I commend the dancers for not flinching at the pops and bangs, although I suppose those who complain of SPAC's heat, humidity and mosquitoes can add this to their litany), the onstage fireworks came with the ever-popular Balanchine/Sousa extravaganza, Stars and Stripes. In a debut, Kathryn Morgan was a perky and ever-so-delicately spicy baton-twirling leader of the First Campaign's high-jumping, red-skirted cheerleaders, and, also in a debut Gwyneth Muller mugged engagingly with her trumpet and led the tall, long-legged fillies of the Second Campaign through their prancing pinwheel formations. To tremendous cheers from the students in the peanut galleries, Daniel Ulbricht led the powerful men's ensemble through an especially zippy Third Campaign. (The orchestra, led by perennial guest conductor David Briskin, were strong and clear throughout the evening, although for Stars Briskin seemed determined to live up to his surname.) Ulbricht bounced and flew about the stage, like a little fireplug of a General Sheridan or Napoleon, firing off salvos of double-double tours with happy brio, and, in general, bringing down the house. The ensemble's final fusillade of massed double tours was as thrilling as any I remember, and the cheers were just deafening.

Finally, Ashley Bouder and Stephen Hanna again brought down the house with the Liberty Bell and El Capitan pas de deux. La Bouder, who now owns this pas de deux like no dancer since Melissa Hayden, astonishes me by growing technically and artistically from performance to performance. Although she displays a certain smug self-satisfaction in Stars, she puts me in mind of the old-time baseball player who said, "It ain't boasting if you can do it." And Bouder can do it. She began the dangerous adagio with a stunning fouette from an unsupported balance a la seconde to a deep penchee in arabesque into Hanna's waiting grip, and never shied from a risk thereafter. Between her jaw-dropping technical feats (was that a quadruple pique turn?) she found time to play outrageously with Briskin's rapid tempi, holding a balance in attitude while triggering a languorous fall from the vertical with a saucy tip of her canary-feathered head, or marching about on pointe with the arm and shoulder-swinging gusto of a drum majorette. For his part, Hanna was a strong and canny partner in the adagio, marching about the stage and arriving at just the right spot and instant to smoothly hold Bouder after she launched herself into one unsupported turn after another, and bouncing through the coda's signature flex-footed entrechats and salutes with a magnificently unruly glee.

It sometimes seems a bit too kitschy when the audience claps along with the ballet's delicious finale to "The Stars and Stripes Forever," but it's good to remember Balanchine's fondness for creative vulgarity, as well as his pride in his adopted country. I'll just add this happy chance to see America once again through his eyes to the long list of things for which I'll be forever in his debt.