"Sound Ballet"

By preference, New York's tabloid Daily News (circ. 2,250,000) sticks to a sturdy guttural in judging the more delicate and esoteric works of man. But last week the News pulled the plug and let the adjectives flow for a new ballet.

"Enchanting, stimulating, beautiful, active, lively, lovely, colorful, unusual, and just plain sound ballet," said the News, and the rest of the critics agreed. With his new Caracole, George Balanchine, composer of probably more ballets--and certainly fewer flops--than any other living choreographer, wowed them again.

Balanchine wanted to use Mozart's sprightly Divertimento in B Flat (K. 287) for his 73rd ballet. Four days before the premiere by his New York City Ballet, he found a title of French origin that fit his new dances like a leotard: "Caracole" --twisting and turning in a compact form. Caracole was full of fancy, always clear, but incredibly complex. The companies that could dance it, as the Times's John Martin noted, "could be numbered on one's right thumbs."

The ballet opened on a simply curtained stage with an eight-girl corps in red-shaded classic tutus, moving in familiar Balanchine patterns--four against four, diagonally across the stage, interweaving. Then Balanchine proved the caliber of his company. He set five ballerinas in a line: Maria Tallchief, Tanaquil Le-Clercq, Diana Adams, Patricia Wilde, Melissa Hayden. Three danseurs nobles

(Eglevsky, Robbins and Magallanes) joined them in a fluid, swiftly changing pattern. In the second movement, "Theme and Variations," Balanchine exploited Tallchief's precision, Diana Adams' elegant lyricism, Melissa Hayden's athletic excellence. The "Minuet" interlude for the corps de ballet was dainty, but with too much energy and verve to be precious. The Finale, with the full company on stage, sent the critics racing hot-eyed for their typewriters.

If Balanchine's 73rd ballet was a smash success, his 74th two nights later was as close to an unqualified flop as Balanchine ever comes. Bayou, danced to a thin and repetitious suite from Composer-Critic Virgil Thomson's Louisiana Story film score, was simply not Classicist Balanchine's meat. His adventure in Americana was little more than tired clichee.

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