City Ballet is having a schizophrenic season. The opening black-and-white Balanchine week was a triumph, and the further rush of Balanchine in the following weeks has given us the most satisfying programming in many years – says Robert Gottlieb in The New York Observer.

Equally, the overall level of performance compared to what we’ve been experiencing for 20 years has been dazzling: not only have the cobwebby old-timers been swept away, but the younger contingent has ripened, seemingly overnight. Out with the old, in with the new. Whatever and whoever is responsible, the audience is responding with more genuine enthusiasm than it has in a long time.