DUTIFUL ABT REVIVAL : GREGORY’S GRANDIOSE ‘COPPELIA’

“Coppelia” is the ideal ballet for an incipient ballerina. The bucolic heroine of Arthur Saint-Leon’s quaint romantic relic doesn’t have to be grand and glorious. All she needs is charm, a penchant for pert humor, a sweet sense of the ridiculous and an overriding aura of innocent abandon.

It helps, of course, if she can dance like a dream. Still, in the final analysis, Swanilda remains an ingenue to the core--and to the corps.

After a painless five-year hiatus, American Ballet Theatre has revived the lightweight, candy-coated “Coppelia” production staged for the company by Enrique Martinez back in 1969. Perversely, the revival seems to be functioning these days as a compensatory vehicle for the mature, heroic, bigger-than-life ballerinas Kenneth MacMillan deems inappropriate for Juliet.

Every tragedienne deserves a place in the comic sun, at least once in a while. Nevertheless, this borders on the ridiculous.

Sunday night at Shrine Auditorium it was Cynthia Gregory’s turn. She danced superbly, of course, with rare generosity of scale, authority of manner and illumination of style. Apart from a few unsteady balances in the wedding pas de deux, she offered object lessons in technical savoir-faire.

No one can deny the radiance of her smile, the persuasion of her diligence and dedication. What’s more, she entered into the potentially humorous charades with enormous good will, suggesting all the while that a nice zany lady may be lurking beneath the feathers of this formidable swan queen.

Still, the Swanilda mustered by Gregory was polished, conscientious and admirable--not instantly adorable. Ultimately, she inspired uncomfortable images of a Joan Crawford trying to play Gidget.

As Franz, Fernando Bujones provided extraordinary demonstrations of impetuosity, speed and precision, and he inevitably partnered Gregory with quiet strength. This extraordinary danseur always has tended to be most persuasive in challenges that require more bravado than dramatic penetration. “Coppelia” brings out the flamboyant best in him.

Dr. Coppelius can be played for laughs, for fascination or for pity. Terrence Orr fluctuates from caricature to grotesquerie to pathos in an oddly ill-focused portrait of the old doll maker. Where is Alexander Minz when we need him?

Otherwise this was a business-as-usual “Coppelia.” Lisa Lockwood and Peter Fonseca led the mazurka con brio. Elaine Kudo brought sensual authority to her share of the csardas. Christine Spizzo and Amanda McKerrow kept the kitsch-gush to a minimum in the lyrical solos of Aurora and Prayer.

Alan Barker tended deftly to the minimal needs of sweet and creaky Delibes in the pit.