Concerto 488: like Dufay said, the music was heavenly, and the high point of the piece. The choreography, though, wasn't very inventive and didn't really 'move' or say anything specific to me. The program stated that Lila York was a dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Compnay, then later became the Artistic Director of PNB Offstage, a program to develop and produce new choreography at PNB. Even though the dancers did wear ballet shoes, the movements also didn't strike me as particularly 'balletic', as most of the steps were turned in, etc.
The Firebird: The costumes were very, um, interesting. I remember reading somewhere that the costumes were supposed to look Mayan, or some other ancient South American civilization. Kastchei's costume and the Priestess' costume certainly did look South American, but most of the costumes didn't. The Princesses must have been very hard to partner because of their panniers, not to mention dancing by themselves. On a good note, the Firebird's tutu was beautiful, and the set was gorgeous!
As in Concerto, the dancers danced James Kudelka's choreography very well. But we didn't figure out who was who until the very end, and even now I'm still not sure what the purpose of some of the characters were. Except for Aranxta Ochoa (the Firebird) making her bird-like movements and Prince Ivan (James Ihde) carrying a bow, there was little or no characterization. An Old Reptile, an Older Beast (Jeffery Gribler!), a Jaguar, a General, Warthogs, Knights, Guards, a Sanke, and Lizards were virtually the same except for costumes. At the very end of the ballet, when Ivan and Vaislia were presumably getting married (?), a Priestess and a bunch of people in gold (princesses?) came onstage and stood there for about five minutes.
Overall, the actual dancing was wonderful. But if the PA Ballet wants to have a better known reputation, they need to dance ballets that make sense.