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These familiarities were particularly welcome at the first night of the Nutcracker in City Ballet's disconcertingly remade home, reborn as the David H. Koch Theater. I've a few thoughts on the new look, but I'll save them for another report, and let's get straight to the dancing:

While veteran Nutcracker-goers might find the first-act party scene to be a bit tedious, as little "real dancing" occurs (dancing dolls notwithstanding), Balanchine's careful evocation of a long-lost world, where children are taken both more and less seriously than today, is the real heart of this ballet. Revisionists who want to find in the Nutcracker some deep, dark parable of a young girl's coming of age (as in Baryshnikov's long-ago version that had Gelsey Kirkland spend the entire ballet in her shmatas) might look more closely at the great respect with which the parents at the Stahlbaum's party treat other generations, both the children and the aged grandparents. Every game, toy and dance with which the children are presented treats them, not as today's hipper-than-their parents kids, whose maturity's reduced to a wily consumerism, but as adults-to-be. The treatment of children may seem hopelessly quaint and uncool, but it's founded on a deep respect for their potential when they become parents in their turn. The party scene has much to teach us, if look with clear eyes. Even today, what woman wouldn't want to be presented with a corsage by her kneeling beau?

At this party, Ellen Bar was a particularly glamorous Frau Stahlbaum, with Christian Tworzyanski's Dr. Stahlbaum an enthusiastic master of ceremonies, leading his young charges briskly through follow-the-leader games. Callie Reiff's was a strong-willed Marie; her evil looks at Colby Clark's happily delinquent Fritz suggested that her nutcracker might well suffer its crucial damage not from Fritz's feet, but a brisk application to his skull. Robert LaFosse's Drosselmeier was, as always, a many-layered portrait of a slightly down-at-the-heels, old and old-fashioned gentleman (he's the only adult in knee-britches) who doesn't let false propriety keep him from indulging in a snort of booze (or snuff?) with his back to us. Likolani Brown and and Jenelle Manzi were Drosselmeier's dancing Harlequin and Columbine dolls, and Giovanni Villalobos the toy soldier, shooting his imaginary rifle from the knee between tricky double-and-a-quarter tours en l'air.

A look at the program later confirmed what my ears told me, that it was Arturo Delmoni who played Tchaikovsky's violin interlude so sweetly; I had to check the program because from the orchestra seats it's no longer possible to see individual musicians in the new, extra-deep pit, even when they're standing, as was Delmoni. In fact, I could see little more of Faycal Karoui than the top of his head and, occasionally, his baton. As Karoui's enthusiastic, even aerobic, conducting style has always been charming, and often more entertaining than what's passing onstage, I felt a loss. How ironic that changes make the musicians easier to hear have also made them nearly impossible to see.

The tree grew out of its trap-door with its familiar majesty, the Nutcracker (Lance Chantiles-Wertz) defeated Henry Seth's happily hammy Mouse King with the help of Reiff's on-the-money shoe-toss, and all was right with the world. The dancing Snowflakes may not herald a new spring, but for my eyes, deprived of City Ballet since last summer, they always speak to me of new life. I'm happy to say that Marie now gets to put her shoe back on while waiting in the wings for the Snowflake's dance to end, so we no longer need to see her pacing half-barefoot through the snow and wonder why the Prince didn't give her a shoe instead of that formerly verminous tiara.

I may know by heart the parade of sweets that's the second act's Konfiturenburg, but I welcome the chance to get reacquainted each year. Megan Fairchild's a happy, technically assured Sugarplum Fairy, and she made a long, unvarying smile of her opening solo. I hate to say it, but I wish Fairchild would cultivate some rough edges: she's so assured and strong that she gives the appearance of never testing her limits. A bit less aplomb would add some shine to her technical brilliance, which she seems hell-bent on disguising. It might even lead her to play with the music, rather than following it as a happy duty.

Later, in the grand pas de deux with Joaquin de Luz, she was the picture of authority. Fairchild's by no means a tall dancer, yet by most standards the brilliant, diminutive De Luz is too short for her. After some white-knuckle moments in their first year or two together, they've clearly worked hard at becoming a smoothly meshed, if occasionally unorthodox, partnership, and this most long and difficult of Balanchine's adagios gave plenty of time to contemplate their partnering style. Often they'll look a bit more cantilevered than other couples, leaning off the vertical towards, or pulling away from, each other, using gravity and leverage to augment their purchase on each other in ways a taller couple wouldn't find necessary. Although this style sometimes seems to distort the choreography's line, as in their pas de deux from Theme and Variations, mostly it's just miraculous, like the apocryphal bumblebee that shouldn't be able to fly. Regardless, at the long adagio's climactic promenades, Fairchild was rock solid, and as De Luz slowly sank to his knee before releasing her into her well-held final balance, he seemed as much struck by awe as by a cavalier's respect. For his own part, De Luz was a happy-go-lucky charmer, beaming through multiple turns in second as if he could do them all day (and he probably can).

Chantiles-Wertz mimed the story of his battle with the Mouse King with unusual gravitas, to well-earned applause. In the rush of divertissements, Gwyneth Muller and Ask la Cour briskly discharged the rather thankless job of leading the first and most forgettable dance, Hot Chocolate (Spanish). Rebecca Krohn was a thoroughly decaffeinated Coffee (Arabian); her rendition of Balanchine's hootchie cootchie bon-bon was clinically unsexy. It's not so much that Krohn's not particularly curvy in a role that rewards curviness (the decidedly uncurvy Wendy Whelan is immortalized on film as a stunning Coffee), but that the astringent clarity which makes her useful in Balanchine's leotard ballets makes for an entirely affectless Coffee, whose every move should drip with promise and innuendo, suggesting more than delivering. Sally Rand she's not.

Daniel Ulbricht's been dancing Tea (Chinese) since the long-ago days when he was an apprentice, along with his female attendants Ashley Bouder and Megan Fairchild. They're all principals now, and while Bouder and Fairchild have moved on, Ulbricht remains to pop out of his little box night after night. And why not? As teas go, he's Morning Thunder, with his boisterous, rocket-boosted Russian splits bringing down the house, as always. Since the days of Eddie Villella, it just seems right that Candy Canes should be led by a charismatic Italian, and Sean Suozzi leaped through his hoop with dispatch and flair. I'm happy to say that Erica Pereira no longer looks twelve, leading the Marzipan Shepherdesses she looked at least thirteen, and danced with the authority of a veteran. (Of course Pereira's older than this, but her slight physique and ready, if not always appropriate, enthusiasm makes her seem that young.) With its protractor-like pointework and tricky pirouettes, Marzipan's a technical tightrope, which Pereira crossed daintily and decisively, especially the final triple pirouette to the knee. I was happy to see Megan LeCrone among the Shepherdesses; I hope soon we'll be seeing her return to the leads in which she was once so stellar and promising. Even now, when City Ballet's scene-stealing, drag-queen Mother Gingers are long gone, Justin Peck was particularly staid and sober, calmly fixing his face beneath sensible grayish mascara as his Polichinelles gambolled out of his skirts and back again. (I remembered wistfully the candy canes above Christian Tworzyanski's eyes which dazzled more than the dancing ones.)

In the Waltz of the Flowers, it was a lush and breathtaking drop of dew that splattered the stage in the person of Sara Mearns. She only fell once, on a downstage spot apparently infused with essence of banana peel, as she slipped there a second time, but recovered. Actually, Mearns' Dewdrop was wonderful. She doesn't charge through the roles' five entrances with the quarterhorse fleetness of spectacular Dewdrops like Bouder, but invites us to stop and smell the ... nevermind. After her two slips, Mearns wisely dialed down her intensity a bit, without losing her lilting, thrilling poise.

After the pas de deux and finale, it remained only for Marie and her prince to soar home in their reindeer-drawn sleigh as Fairchild's Sugarplum waved her wand in a circular, bourreing benediction, reminding us that, at least for that moment, everything was indeed right with the world.