Having seen enough of his ballets, one begins to feel that George Balanchine had a soul of winter. The crystal palace of Symphony in C, the blizzard in The Nutcracker, the snowdrift sparkle of “Diamonds”—was he kissed by the Ice Maiden at birth? He was certainly drawn to her. In 1928, Igor Stravinsky composed music that told the story of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ice Maiden. He wrote in homage to Tchaikovsky, and transformed the tale into a fable of artistic destiny—the baby kissed into a life of art, a life at odds with a normal existence. Stravinsky called his score Le Baiser de la fée and it is hauntingly beautiful and implacable. Balanchine first choreographed the ballet in 1937, and by 1950 had rechoreographed it three more times—and still it wasn’t right. In the 1970s, he returned to Baiser, but used Stravinsky’s concert version instead of the full score. He pared down and captured the tale in compressed imagery that is more poem than plot. The poignant new work was titled Divertimento from “Le Baiser de la Fée,” and it is sublime. Also on the program are works by Christopher Wheeldon, Lar Lubovitch, and Jerome Robbins. —Laura Jacobs