ABT FINALE : CARBERRY AS KITRI IN ‘QUIXOTE’

Eliza Doolittle may have been right when she declared that “the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she’s treated.” Still, when American Ballet Theatre moved Deirdre Carberry from flower girl to ballerina for the final “Don Quixote” of the season, Sunday in Shrine Auditorium, the star treatment just wasn’t enough.

Cast as the sultry, mercurial Kitri, Carberry danced with no more passion or daring than she had displayed as a notably sweet and precise flower girl on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. This was a performance of consistent warmth, freshness, security and taste but also one never fully suited to the flamboyant, Spanish-flavored challenges. No spitfire she.

Compared to Kitri’s blazing attacks on Saturday afternoon, when the role was danced by Cheryl Yeager (a dancer who, like Carberry, holds a secondary rank within the Ballet Theatre hierarchy), Carberry’s dancing looked cautious in unsupported turns, relatively unformed in jumps and truly impressive only in tests of balance.

Opposite her: Patrick Bissell, dancing at white heat and reveling in the one-arm lifts that he hadn’t ventured Friday with Cynthia Gregory. The Sunday cast also boasted a charming Amour (Christine Spizzo), a refined dream-sequence Mercedes (Carla Stallings) and two flower girls more than ready for their own shot at Kitrihood: Leslie Browne and Amanda McKerrow.