It’s new. It’s exciting. And it’s first-rate.The only thing wrong with the company’s season-opening all-Balanchine program, which ran four days in the 2,700 seat Memorial Auditorium, was that it offered too much good dance to absorb in one sittingónearly three hours’ worth. It was as though founder and artistic director Robert Weiss went a bit over-board to prove the company’s credentials. On the other hand, as rare as top-notch ballet is in this state, it was the best sort of overindulgence.The tone of the debut concert was set even before the curtain went up, when New York City Ballet conductor Maurice Kaplow launched the N.C. Symphony into Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, the musical backdrop for George Balanchine’s seminal contemporary ballet “Serenade.” Former NYCB star Melissa Hayden staged it for the company, augmenting the corps with her best students from the N.C. School of the Arts. Right down to noted designer Karinska’s gossamer skirts - which floated aloft like blue pastel chalk smudged on thin air - it was ravishing.It also defined this new enterprise in one fell swoop: an American ballet company in the NYCB vein, shaped by a director who danced under Balanchine for 16 years and who brings not only that particular aesthetic but also invaluable connections.How else to explain current NYCB stars Damian Woetzel and Alexandra Ansanelli as guest artists in the bravura “Stars and Stripes Pas de Deux”? It, of course, brought down the house (which was about half full last Sunday afternoon).The impressive all-Balanchine program alone spoke volumes. In addition to “Serenade“ and “Stars and Stripes,” it featured two other duets, “Steadfast Tin Soldier” and “Duo Concertant,” and it finished with the crowd-pleasing Gershwin tribute “Who Cares?” (with sassy Timour Bourtasenkov in the Baryshnikov role).This was the dance equivalent of starting the opera season with “Aida.” It made for an impressive debut, but now comes the hard part: keeping it going.What Weiss and company have done is birthed a fully professional ballet company, the only one in the state besides N.C. Dance Theatre, overnight. Through auditions bled a truly international roster of dancers - from Romania, Moldavia, Uraguay, Spain, etc. - with impeccable credentials. And with this first show, they’ve set the bar high.With all the artistic elements in place, it will be up to arts patrons in the Triangle to support the first world-class arts group of their own (as opposed to the taxpayer-sponsored state orchestra and art museum).

Here’s toasting their beautiful experiment!