When asked, as he was a few months ago, whether he had any plans to quit City Ballet, Mr. Martins gave what sounded like a stock answer. I'll leave, he said (or words to this effect), when I find someone who is willing to devote as much time and care to the company as I do. Chances are, he's not looking too hard, and if he isn't, chances are he won't find that certain someone anytime soon.

One of the biggest justified complaints about Mr. Martins's tenure at City Ballet is that he has simply been there too long, and that it is time for a change. He will be 60 in October. Not counting several years of guest appearances before 1970, he has been a member of City Ballet for 36 years, a company leader for 23 years, its sole leader for 16 years. Maybe it's time to open up the windows and let some fresh breezes blow in.

The gamut of opinion seems to range from those who think he is doing an honorable job, as good as could be expected, to those who proclaim, often stridently, that he has presided over the erosion of the Balanchine repertory without finding new sources of choreographic talent, that he has failed to school and develop his younger dancers properly, that he has robbed Balanchine's ballets of their soul. Jennifer Homans, writing in The New York Times four years ago, was by no means the harshest critic when she proclaimed that "a lifeless orthodoxy reigns" at City Ballet.