Vienna Waltzes was one of New York City Ballet’s greatest hits. It premiered in 1977, a decade in which George Balanchine was often off balance for any number of reasons (he would die six years later, in 1983). Balanchine had explored the waltz before, in the doom-laden La Valse (1951) and the ornate Liebeslieder Walzer (1960). But in Vienna Waltzes he gives the audience a history lesson in five parts, moving from the waltz in early folk form to its sweeping sensual refinement in European ballrooms. The heart-stopping fifth movement, set to waltzes from Richard Strauss’s 1911 opera Der Rosenkavalier, captures fin-de-siècle romanticism at its pinnacle. The program begins with Balanchine’s Episodes, from 1959. Set to the music of Anton von Webern, it is one of Mr. B’s modernist odysseys, deeply structured yet punctuated with voids. I saw the ballet just before the pandemic shutdown, and the final Ricercata—Webern’s orchestration of Bach’s Musical Offering—left me speechless. The dates are October 5, 12, 13, and 15 (matinee and evening). —Laura Jacobs