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One alum, sitting within earshot, remarked at intermission that he didn’t understand why the company was performing a Balanchine ballet. “In my day,” he said, “we didn’t do Balanchine. There was a war between the companies.” The company used to dance ballets by De Mille and Tudor, or Robbins’s Fancy Free. Ashton’s work, he said, referring to The Dream, didn’t enter the company’s repertoire until much later. (He is absolutely correct: The Dream had its ABT première in 2002.)

His point was, I believe, a valid one, but the company danced both ballets beautifully. However much or little Balanchine ABT performs, Symphonie Concertante did the alumni proud. The corps was neat, clean, and very together, and looked happy to boot. The six demi-soloists, likewise, were a cheerful and cohesive bunch. The cast was headed by Stella Abrera and Gillian Murphy, with Maxim Beloserkovsky replacing an injured Vladimir Malakhov.
 

Abrera and Murphy could not be more dissimilar dancers. Abrera, gracious and engaging, has a soft torso that gives into the movement, while her legs hit their positions with precision and strength. Murphy, on the other hand, seemed tense. Her technique was as solid and as impressive as ever, but her upper body was overly held, which added to her air of aloofness. In fact, there appeared to be a competition between the leads. Symphonie Concertante is a highly technical ballet; there is nothing to hide behind. When Abrera tossed off a pirouette-into-fouetté without coming down off pointe - well, she looked over at Murphy and grinned, and the audience laughed, and you could just feel Murphy knowing she was being upstaged.

Beloserkovsky, meanwhile, didn’t even appear until the second movement, at which point he did little more than partner Abrera and Murphy. He somehow managed to keep them both moving constantly, orbiting around him, devoting himself equally to each. He looked genuinely happy when the third movement began, and he went tearing through his steps as though afraid he would lose the chance to dance on his own. At a time when ABT has so many wonderful male dancers, it seems a shame to put on a ballet that calls for only one, and uses that one so little.
 

The Dream only showcases two men - Oberon and Puck - but oh, how it does showcase them! Marcelo Gomes, looking rather like a jolly green giant in his green unitard and leafy wreath, danced with exceptional control and command as Oberon, the fairy king. But it was Herman Cornejo as Puck who stole the show. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy, and Frederick Ashton saw to it that his ballet captured that. Cornejo captured it too, with his mischievous, free-spirited sprightliness. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he can jump and turn too: There was one pirouette he did that became a swizzle turn, like an ice skater does, lowering the passé leg down to fifth while spinning. He just kept on going around and the audience let out a collective “Wow.”

Julie Kent was Gomes’s Titania, imperious and flirtatious all at once. Her dancing was lovely, but I felt she played the role too young. Her Titania was giddy and toying, and consequently she and Oberon came across more as lovers than as king and queen. I also would like to have seen a deeper interpretation of Titania giving up the Changeling, though the fault may be with Ashton, not Kent. When Titania finally gives in and hands the Changeling over to Oberon, I didn’t see the motivation. One moment she was recounting a dream of falling in love with a donkey and looking self-conscious about it, and the next she was handing over the boy.

The lovers all overacted, perhaps intentionally, which was wonderful because it brought out the broad, plain-faced comedy. The audience can’t help liking characters who make faces at one another and slap each other around and feign fisticuffs. Isaac Stappas heroically took on the role of Bottom, a role that requires no small amount of pointework (including one hilarious attempt at a virtuosic arabesque balance) and an ability to shimmy. Bottom’s most interesting and developed section came not when he had become a donkey, a state he assumed rather quickly, but after he had been turned back into a human. I thought it was a unique choreographic choice to stress Bottom’s self-rediscovery, rather than his transformation from man to beast.

My one complaint with the evening was that they didn’t name the alumni as they appeared - I know there were those among the 300 who I would have loved to applaud personally. I was happy to settle, though, for applauding them all heartily.