"We have always had the cream," boasts New York City Ballet's George Balanchine, "but now with more danc ers going through the sieve, the cream is richer than ever before. Our company is packed with great dancers. Any one of them would be a prima ballerina with any other company."
Like a proud father, Balanchine this season has exposed a wealth of gifted young girls in a variety of major roles, almost to the exclusion of the older principal dancers. Patricia Neary, 22, for example, who graduated from the corps de ballet just last year, has per formed 47 solos so far this season, while Maria Tallchief, 39, long the company's biggest box-office attraction, has danced but eleven times. Tallchief, the fourth of Balanchine's five ballerina wives, says wistfully: "When I was married to Mr. Balanchine, he created his greatest roles for me; it is hard to watch others doing them. I have not danced enough this season, that I know."
Balanchine does not like to see a dancer transform his choreography into a vehicle for her own virtuosity. "You have to watch out," says one member of the troupe. "If you get too good at a role, you'll lose it." He discourages the star system by refusing to announce in advance which dancers are performing. Audiences queuing up at the New York State Theater last week for Ballet Imperial did not know whether they would see Tallchief or, as it happened, a budding teen-ager named Suzanne Farrell. In the past, explains Balanchine, when a soloist fell ill he had to scratch the ballet. Now, he says happily, he can confidently call on any one of several dancers to fill any role.
Lately arrived from the provinces with mothers in tow, many of the new dancers have yet to reach voting age. Offstage they are disarmingly shy and giggly. Cloistered in temples of the dance since childhood, they are strangers to the ways of the world and such diver sions as dating and social dancing. The best of the new generation is notable for their agility and stature. ("I love tall girls," says Balanchine. "The more you can see the better.") Most prom ising of Balanchine's new favorites:
∙KAY MAZZO, 18, a willowy, fragilely pretty girl from Chicago. A sickly child, she began dancing at age six on the ad vice of her doctor, went on to tour with Jerome Robbins' Ballets: U.S.A. before joining the New York City Ballet two years ago. She has danced leading roles only eight times, but memorably, especially in Afternoon of a Faun, a ballet perfectly attuned to her feathery, sweetly feminine style.
∙PATRICIA NEARY was fixing to enlist in the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall when Balanchine drafted her. A tall (5 ft. 71 in.), long-stemmed native of Miami, she is known as "The Technician," and has excelled in an extremely wide range of roles in her year as soloist. Her precise, whippet-quick movements are best showcased in Four Temperaments. She spends all her off hours baking brownies and cakes ("Oh, they're sooo tempting, but I can't touch them") for the theater's canteen, which is run by her mother, a former vaudeville hoofer.