I almost hate to add my point here because I'm afraid of the repercussions...........dare I say that some Balanchine ballets do not have stories to this group?
Concerto Barocco, for example....... no story, you've got your first violin and your second violin backed up by the rest of the orchestra (8 corps. girls)........no story, just a physical representation of the music......
that's what is so brilliant about a lot of Balanchine's works - there is no "story" - it's music in motion......
As for soul...no one who has seen the melancholic variation of Four Temperaments done well can say that Balanchine doesn't give the dancers an opportunity to put themselves into his works........
I think the story ballets are easier for the general public to accept - it's cut and dry - you know how you're supposed to feel at the end of Swan Lake - "oh how terrible, two lovers forever separated by circumstance.....tragic".......
Abstract is defined in Webster's dictionary as " not concrete; that which does not reproduce the recognizable".......isn't that the point of art? To make you think.........make you question why a performance evoked certain feelings in you? To ask yourself why you feel moved even though nobody told you to feel that way?..............
just some thoughts........