American Ballet Theatre’s house choreographer, Alexei Ratmansky, is taking on the historical novel Callirhoe—a sort of Romeo and Juliet that was written in the 1st century A.D. and is set in ancient Greece. The score is an arrangement of music by Aram Khachaturian, who in 1954 composed the tuneful Spartacus, a Bolshoi Ballet blockbuster. Ratmansky, who’s happiest in Soviet-style abstraction, has proved too many times that he’s not a very good storyteller. Well, maybe this time … Meanwhile, the title of the ballet is now Of Love and Rage. —L.J.