New York

In a rare moment of openness about meaning in his ballets, New York City Ballet's founding visionary, George Balanchine, told John Clifford in 1969 that the revered second movement of his famously "abstract" black-and-white "Symphony in C" "was supposed to be dance of the moon." In "I Remember Balanchine," a collection of memoirs, Mr. Clifford notes that the remark left him speechless. For Mr. Clifford, then a dancer trying his hand at choreography, Balanchine's aesthetic was supposed to be cool, formal and all about the steps.

Such limited views of Balanchine's aesthetics continue. One after another, in varying degrees of meaninglessness or misguided intention, the gala proceedings that helped kick off NYCB's current spring season—which included two premieres as well as new costumes for Balanchine's "Symphony in C," to Bizet's music of the same name—fell flat in the light of Balanchine's example.

Tiler Peck and Tyler Angle in 'Two Hearts,' choreographed by Benjamin Millepied to music by Nico Muhly. Paul Kolnik

New York City Ballet

The David H. Koch Theater
Through June 10

Titled "À La Française," and billed as a salute to France, the gala opened with "Mes Oiseaux," a new work by NYCB's Ballet Master in Chief, Peter Martins, to Marc-André Dalbavie's Trio No. 1, for violin, cello and piano, with costume designs by Gilles Mendel. "Two Hearts," choreographed by Benjamin Millepied to a commissioned score by Nico Muhly, featured costumes by Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte. The program's closer unveiled Marc Happel's rethought costuming for "Symphony in C," which Balanchine first choreographed for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1947, when the work was called "Le Palais de Cristal."

Of the new works, "Mes Oiseaux" is the more inconsequential. Arranged for a quartet of corps de ballet dancers, Mr. Martins's dance plays out as a string of strike-a-pose moments. Most of these full-body accents draw attention to the music's somewhat austere aims as they're shaped by legs and arms flung, held or stretched. There really aren't any of the "steps" often invoked in presumed emulation of Balanchine's choreographic ways. And there is little drama or tension to the relationship of the lone man amid three women (an unaffected Taylor Stanley alongside youthful Lauren Lovette, Ashly Isaacs and Claire Kretzschmar). Mr. Mendel's primarily black costumes with featherlike patterning might hint at magpies, but "Mes Oiseaux" never takes off.

Mr. Muhly's evocative score for "Two Hearts" suggests a world unto itself. At a company seminar focused on Mr. Millepied and his premiere, Mr. Muhly said he took inspiration from "murder ballads," traditional songs that tell of lovers and homicide. While there is more drama in "Two Hearts" than in "Mes Oiseaux," with Mr. Millepied's featured dancers sometimes displaying personal gesture as well as challenging dance moves, the world heard in the music isn't revealed by the choreography.

With the men, headed by Tyler Angle, dressed like some chic athletic team, and the women, with Tiler Peck at their center, resembling smartly attired cheerleaders, the titular "Two Hearts" end up as little more than two hard-working dancers. "Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender," a folk song about a love triangle, murders and a suicide that Mr. Muhly used as his score's finale, has lyrics that are hard to catch as sung by Dawn Landes from the orchestra pit. As for Mr. Millepied's dancemaking, it seems more concerned with athletic "wow" effects than anything resembling dramatic meaning.

Which brings us to the Balanchine showpiece. Mr. Happel's redo of the classic Karinska designs for the female-dominated "Symphony in C" is more miss than hit. When Karinska devised her "Bizet" tutus in 1950, she established a Balanchine dancer signature. The softness and fullness of her "powder puff" tutus stood in contrast to the flatter, stiffer "pancake" ones seen elsewhere.

With his costumes, Mr. Happel has gone back to the more flattened, saucer look. His application of dusky Swarovski crystals as highlights fails to alleviate the tutus' one-dimensional feeling. Worse, at times the tiny, dark accents at the base of the bodices' plunging necklines can read as if the women have shiny, hairy chests. Mr. Happel's palette of blacks for the men's costumes, never as distinct a Karinska statement as the women's, are lackluster—charcoal gray mated with inky velvet to dull effect.

Not only an absence of meaning in NYCB's new ballets but also a lack of depth to the company's dancing can too often be felt in the overall repertory nowadays. The once vivid and vital projection and accent of its ensemble performing, especially among the women, remains frequently absent. Conversely, an overeager pushiness of the leading dancers—newly promoted principal dancer Rebecca Krohn is but the latest case in point—can accompany a lack of physical strength and academic clarity.

It's one thing to debate just what ballets are supposed to mean; it's another to see that there's little basis for discussion.

Mr. Greskovic writes about dance for the Journal.