KIROV DIARY : A TALE OF TWO BALLERINAS

Altynai Assylmuratova.

The first name means “golden crescent.”

I don’t know what the last name means, but at least I have learned to pronounce it. Ah-seel-moor-AH- tovah .

A few years ago, she provided the central focus of a rather awful film called “Backstage at the Kirov.” She was the Cinderella-from-the-corps about to dance her first Odette-Odile in “Swan Lake.”

When the fabled Kirov Ballet of Leningrad visited Paris in 1982, she turned out to be the secret weapon in the ensemble.

Arlene Croce of the New Yorker called her “the most prodigiously endowed ballerina the Kirov has shown us in 20 years.”

“It would not surprise me if she became the leading ballerina of her generation, worldwide,” wrote Tobi Tobias in New York magazine.

“Kirov discipline and Kirov coaching should make something sensational of Assylmuratova within five years,” wrote Clement Crisp in Dancemagazine.

It must be difficult to live up to such an image, to validate the obvious expectations.

Friday night, Assylmuratova--now a respectable old lady of 25--made her North American debut as a potentially dazzling Odette-Odile. She showed a perfect, long-limbed body; a round, mesmerizing face, a subtle sense of drama. She also seemed technically off form at times, somewhat unmusical and prone to miscalculation.

If she was nervous, she had good reason. The eyes of the Western ballet world were upon her.

At an interview the next morning, she is reluctant to discuss her performance. The tempestuous Black Swan turns out to be very shy over tea.

“I was most nervous the evening before the performance,” she says through the ubiquitous interpreter. “When I finally got on stage, I felt better. Beginnings are always most difficult.

“I did feel certain pressures, certain responsibilities. I want to keep the flag flying high for my company. I was not terribly excited about my performance, but I know I was dancing with enthusiasm, and the audience was wonderful.”

Her super-attentive partner had been Konstantin Zaklinsky, a particularly tall, muscular and handsome danseur who also happens to be her husband.

“I love dancing with him,” she says, “and I hate rehearsing with him.

“When I rehearse with other partners and something goes wrong, we are polite to each other. When I rehearse with my husband and something goes wrong, there are no courtesies. I get all the blame.”

Originally, she had not even been scheduled to dance in Vancouver. Her name was not listed in the program.

“This,” she says, “is news to me.”

Nor had she been listed in the “Swan Lake” casts for Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles this week.

“That,” she says, “is wrong. I am to dance Odette-Odile on May 23.”

Maksim Krastin, head of the Kirov Theater, volunteers an explanation. “We have more ballerinas than performances. Sometimes changes are necessary. In this case, Tatiana Terekhova has suffered an injury to her Achilles’ tendon.”

Assylmuratova has watched “all the great Russian ballerinas,” has studied with Inna Zubkovskaya and now coaches with Olga Moiseyeva. Still, she has no role models.

“I have learned much, benefited much, from the examples of many great ballerinas,” she says. “But I don’t want to be a copycat.”

The most obvious role model in residence at the Kirov at the moment must be the revered Irina Kolpakova. The erstwhile blonde is now a black-haired beauty. Tough and radiant at 53, she had shared prima-ballerina duties with Alla Sizova during the two previous Kirov tours to America, in 1961 and 1964.

She still dances on occasion. “I have given up only the juvenile, short-tutu roles,” she says. Her primary responsibility, however, has become that of a coach and ballet mistress.

“It is a natural evolution. I have been dancing for more than 34 years. I would like to leave with others some of the wonderful things that have been given to me.”

She thinks of herself as a crucial link with the past.

“My teacher stayed in Russia after the revolution when Karsavina and the others left. She gave me a piece of history.

“Of course the company has changed. Expression is so different today. Sometimes it is in the dancing alone, not in overt acting. Perhaps the dancers are encouraged to be more individualistic.”

Kolpakova bristles, just slightly, at the mention of her erstwhile colleague Sizova.

“She is still dancing, too, although she did not come on this trip. We never had a real rivalry, but I think we did stimulate each other. When someone said he preferred Sizova in a role to me, that hurt. It made me want to be better. It made me realize that I had done something wrong.

“I was angry at myself, not at her.”

Kolpakova happened to be dancing in Canada 10 years ago with a young Kirov matinee idol when he defected to the West. She sounds stern, terse, when she talks of Mikhail Baryshnikov.

“He was a good dancer, a good partner. We no longer communicate. He made his decision, and we have our pride. He has shown no interest in us. A new generation has come along. The theater goes on without him.”

She now dances most often with Sergei Berezhnoi. Her favorite partner, however, was the noble Vladilen Semenov, who also continues to serve the alma mater on the coaching staff.

“I married him,” she says.

It seems to be a Kirov custom.

Unlike many observers--including Oleg Vinogradov, artistic director of the Kirov--Kolpakova sees little difference between the ballet of Leningrad, which is supposed to epitomize all that is refined, and that of Moscow, which is supposed to be primarily flamboyant.

“The feelings are the same. In many cases, the background of the dancers and the choreographers is the same. Everyone talks of the difference between the Kirov and the Bolshoi, but we don’t.”

Kolpakova looks back on her career with only one regret.

“I would like to dance just a little bit more. Now, when at last I know what I really want to do, my body is not always willing.”

Youth is wasted on the young.