“Capricious Maneuvers,” the eight-minute romp of a curtain raiser that Mr. Peck made for City Ballet’s 2013 Fall Gala, was fun.

These ill-willers of mine, despited at the great reputation I gain’d by exactly predicting another man’s death, have endeavoured to deprive me of it all at once in the most effectual manner, by reporting that I myself was never alive.

to choke off a speaker by uproar

We have dealt with the generals; now let us turn to the particulars.