The beauty of Balanchine

Boston Ballet sparkles in multifaceted 'Jewels'

The Boston Ballet's Carlos Molina and Erica Cornejo are partners during a rehearsal of George Balanchine's ''Jewels.'' (john bohn/globe staff)

George Balanchine's magnificent "Jewels" may have been hailed, when it premiered in 1967, as the world's first three-act plotless ballet, but the concept of abstraction in dance is a peculiar, if not an oxymoronic, thing.

It is, after all, human beings - full-blooded, heart-throbbing, sensual and sweaty - who bring a dance's steps and gestures, its melodies and rhythms and patterns in space to life. And so it is impossible to keep a story - of bonds and breakages, if nothing else - out of the picture.

This was nowhere more evident than in the Boston Ballet's debut last night of Balanchine's famous "Jewels, a two-hour show cracked into the multifaceted "Emeralds," "Rubies," and "Diamonds," each with its own choreographic grammar, syntax (indeed, national origins), and score. That the company shone most brightly in the Stravinsky-driven "Rubies" was no surprise, given its openhearted embrace of innovation and its nerve.

"Emeralds" has a kind of verdant earthiness at its core, touched by mist; its roots have been said to lie in 19th-century France. Set to a wistful score by Gabriel Fauré from "Pelléas et Melisande" and "Shylock," it's a romantic walk through the woods for two couples, a trio, and 10 corps ladies.

Lorna Feijóo, partnered by Yury Yanowsky, begins a bit stiffly, but softens into pure elegance as her arms caress the air and the back of her wrist just brushes her forehead in the "bracelet" sequence. Erica Cornejo, partnered by Carlos Molina, dances between the notes of the music, anticipating their fall. "Emeralds" is full of spirals and diagonals, corps members in parallel lines that the principals pass through. Cornejo carries the sense of opposition like an arrow through her back, her shoulders tautly but airily turned against her lower torso, giving the choreography its intended depth.

"Rubies," by contrast, is shot through with zing and pizzazz. It reverberates inside Stravinsky's Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra - American pie (in your face!) to Emeralds' petit four. It's made of heel walks and wagging hips, pelvic thrusts, and foot stomps.

Kathleen Breen Combes as the soloist is unbelievable. She's as charged as a rocket, drawing the eye smack to her powerful limbs even as she entices with her jutting hips and rippling back. When four men dive at her, manipulating her parts this way and that, you have no fear: you know she'll come out on top.

Melissa Hough and James Whiteside consort and tease in the pas de deux, she a saucy temptress, he a willing supplicant, the two of them now jumping rope, now launching into a hoedown. Whiteside attacks the principal male role with a riveting mix of precision and brio. Battle lines are being drawn here: between sexual gamesmanship and female independence.

The final piece in the trio, "Diamonds," is the most resplendent of the lot, with its lush Tchaikovsky score, choreographic echoes of "Swan Lake," and grand ensemble finish, complete with processional. Alas, the Boston dancers are the weakest in this most traditional Russian ballet section.

The corps work here is a bit ungainly, and the music is much bigger than the dancing: It ebbs and flows in giant waves that can swallow up the dancers. And though the partnering work - Larissa Ponomarenko and Roman Rykine perform the pas de deux - is careful, Ponomarenko is a tad limp. Rykine is remarkable in his leaps and spins - you get the sense he's going to fly right off the stage, into the wings.

The group as a whole, however, executes Balanchine's kaleidoscopic traffic patterns with aplomb. You can only imagine what this ensemble work - now a blizzard, now settling into drifts - would look like from above.