BALLET THEATRE : SOMNOLENT ‘BEAUTY’ AT THE SHRINE

“Sleeping Beauty” or slipping duty? That is the question.

The new production of the wondrous, epochal essay in fairy-tale classicism that opened the three-week season of American Ballet Theatre at Shrine Auditorium on Tuesday obviously means well. The stage is plastered, in fact, with noble intentions.

Kenneth MacMillan’s adaptation exults in fidelity to the outlines and, yes, the nuances of the formidable Petipa model, as filtered through Royal British traditions.

Never mind that illness has prevented the director from personally overseeing the realization of concepts that still look a little fuzzy. Never mind that among the most prominent elements in MacMillan’s “additional choreography,” the Garland Waltz is a muddle and the Jewels divertissement a vapid cliche.

Nicholas Georgiadis’ decors glow with the simulated opulence of Gothic-Elizabethan-Rococo glitz.

Never mind that the first-act set makes an anticlimax of Princess Aurora’s should-be magical entrance, and that the transformation scenes are perfunctory in execution and prosaic in perspective.

The principals selected for this allegedly gala occasion are youthful, attractive, eager, skillful, clean.

Never mind that they also are low-voltage personalities, minimally involved in the narration, muted in mime and chronically if not terminally innocent.

The corps, often defeated in the past by challenges demanding uniform elegance and precision, is mastering the art of courtly elan .

Never mind that the maneuvers still look learned, that a certain air of caution precludes conviction.

The orchestra, staffed with some of the best free-lance players in Los Angeles, attends to the marvelous Tchaikovsky melodies with respectful clarity and remarkable polish.

Never mind that the conductor, Jack Everly, is content to beat time and follow the tippy-toes.

With repetition, with polish, with reconsideration of some of the casting and some of the directorial detail, with the introduction of a few galvanizing dancers in central roles, this “Sleeping Beauty” could be invigorating, even illuminating. In its present, sketchy and cautious form, alas, it remains underwhelmingly somnolent.

In art, as opposed to life, nice sometimes isn’t enough. Take the case of Amanda McKerrow, who danced the title role.

She is indecently talented, ridiculously promising and, at 23, only a few years older than the princess she is portraying. She has learned and mastered every technical quiver of the arduous role.

Tuesday, she sustained neat if hardly extensive balances in the Rose Adagio, slipped into the climactic fish dives as if they represented her favorite mode of relaxation. Still, she gave the impression of a dainty little girl sent in to do a ballerina’s job.

Neither her face nor her body conveyed much rapture as she burst upon the birthday festivities. She suggested no possibility of erotic awakening at the Prince’s kiss. She tended to be restrained just when we wanted expansive abandon, blank when we needed ardor.

Tiny, fragile and fleet, she no doubt would make a delightful Florine in the Bluebird pas de deux, a role that will indeed be hers later in the run. In this context, it may be worth noting that the current ABT casting policy seems to regard all the female roles--radiant heroine, formidable fairy and cutesy avian foil--as interchangeable assignments.

In this version of the ballet, Prince Desire isn’t particularly charming. He isn’t even particularly busy. He executes the standard aristocratic adagietto in what used to be a forest but now looks like a silly palatial ruin and contributes his accustomed share to the grandiose final duet. Essentially, he is supposed to function simply as an attractive and attentive porteur. Kevin McKenzie, ever solid and ever reliable, did just that.

The pervasive forces of good and evil were personified respectively by Leslie Browne as the Lilac Fairy and Victor Barbee as Carabosse.

She emerged surprisingly coarse, brittle, even skittish in a challenge that begs for sovereign suavity. Oddly, he was required to depict the witchy fairy not as an angular grotesque in drag but as a cool, almost soft, legitimately beautiful woman. Given that perfectly defensible interpretation, one had to wonder why the management chose to cast a man in the role in the first place.

The cameo parts were unevenly cast. A sprightly Amy Rose and a flashy but somewhat untidy Julio Bocca tried in vain to sparkle as MacMillan’s ill-conceived Jewels. Shawn Black and Craig Wright as Red Riding Hood and her Wolf attracted attention not for their fatuous onstage games but for the alarming thud of an off-stage accident that accompanied their exit. John Taras introduced an agreeably fussy old Cattalabutte. The five secondary fairies were needlessly pallid.

Cheryl Yeager fluttered sweetly as Florine. Johan Renvall, her partner, took flight with crisp bravura, natural style and striking nonchalance. It must say something about the quality of a “Sleeping Beauty” when the most memorable performance comes from the Bluebird.

The audience waxed decidedly enthusiastic.

Never mind that it filled less than a third of the 6,600-seat cavern. Never mind that hordes of black-tied first-nighters were so busy with their own intermission celebrations that they showed up very late (and very disruptive) for Princess Aurora’s 16th birthday party.

During the christening episode, incidentally, a supernumerary stationed upstage became so overcome with excitement at Carabosse’s wheeled entrance or with the heat or with boredom or with some other urgent affliction that he collapsed. Trusty colleagues had to carry him off in mid-scene.

Perhaps it was an omen.