Those are the blessings that Wheeldon can't help but show, even when he's doing what he regards as a task. But if you look at his prior work and especially at the ballet that he made for the company last season, After the Rain, you see them in a purer state. After the Rain is in two parts, a rare form in ballet. It's as if Wheeldon frankly decided that he would plumb his gift for ensemble work in the first part and his gift for the pas de deux in the second, and call it a night. What a night! Above all, what a pas de deux. Jock Soto came out bare-chested; Wendy Whelan appeared in just a pink leotard and soft shoes (no tights, no point shoes, no presentationalism). Then they went through a series of maneuvers that were not, I think, the representation of a relationship but maybe what one might remember on one's deathbed about a relationship. She crawls between his legs; he lifts her in an awkward pose, and she hangs there. She embraces his head; then she puts her hands down behind her back, outlining the cleavage of her buttocks. They do prettier things, too, but the whole force of the duet is its note of privacy. They don't seem to know we're there. Meanwhile, the voice of the solo violin (playing Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel) rises from the pit, and its loneliness and exposure magnify theirs. This is not the kind of thing we normally see at City Ballet today. It is the real thing.