Thursday night (in the rain) I was at the Opera House with a friend to see San Francisco Ballet opening this season's Program 3, Balanchine Masterworks. Of course for me the singular inimitable thrill was again to see Yuan Yuan Tan dance Aria II in the Stravinsky Violin Concerto, staged originally in 1972. It is a wildly unlikely and undeserved piece of good fortune to live in the same town with the greatest dancer on the planet, still working in her prime. According to the company's web site she was scheduled to perform with Damian Smith, as seen in these images by Erik Tomasson, but in the actual performance Anthony Spaulding danced instead, and splendidly.