More dancers are thrown into the mix, until there's a joyous corps de ballet of them scudding, twirling and bounding in the air.
But for all the ballet's joyous, heedless jingoism, it may have been close to his heart.
Although a little tense in the first act, Cojocaru dances her centrepiece romantic duet with a piercing, joyous intensity, paying this ballet the immense tribute of suggesting that Medora's love for Conrad is as profound a force as Juliet's for Romeo or Odette's for Siegfried.
Furthermore, the gypsies would be presented as comic characters, and Carmen's death would be overshadowed at the end by "triumphal processions, ballets and joyous fanfares".
James Levine conducted the program's main item, George Antheil's joyous racket of a piece, "Ballet Mecanique".
And — a crucial matter — the dancers of the corps de ballet were exact and joyous.
She trains in Lake Arrowhead, Calif., with the choreographer Elena Tcherkaskaya, a former prima ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet whose influence is evident in the flowing, joyous way that Nikodinov now performs.
Edward Morgan, a charismatic performer whose love for ballet finds expression in his small company's joyous classicism, once performed in the ultimate outdoor theater space, the amphitheater in Athens while on tour with the Joffrey Ballet.
Also on the program are a concert version of "Who Cares?," George Balanchine's joyous celebration of the music of George Gershwin, and duets from ballets by Balanchine, William Forsythe and Peter Martins.
