BALLET SERIES ANNOUNCED : NUREYEV’S PARIS TROUPE TO APPEAR IN COSTA MESA

The Paris Opera Ballet will make its West Coast debut in June, 1988, at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

The company, directed by Rudolf Nureyev, will appear June 14-19 as part of the center-sponsored “Classic Dance Series,” center officials announced Wednesday.

The series will also include American Ballet Theatre, the Joffrey Ballet and National Ballet of Canada.

The Paris company will dance Nureyev’s controversial interpretation of “Cinderella,” which premiered in Paris last year. Set to the Prokofiev score, the Nureyev version places the action in 1930s Hollywood, with the prince a leading man in search of a new leading lady and the fairy godmother a producer-director intent on creating a star.

Nureyev, 49, has danced with the company on its tours to Canada this spring and to the East Coast last year. According to center president Thomas R. Kendrick, Nureyev intends to travel with the company. If he does, he is expected to dance the travesti role of the Fairy Godmother at selected performances, Kendrick said.

The Russian-born dancer last danced locally on a program with six principal dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet in March at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Kendrick also announced the return of American Ballet Theatre, directed by Mikhail Baryshnikov, for a two-week engagement Dec. 1-13, 1987. The company first appeared at the center last December in Baryshnikov’s production of “The Nutcracker.”

ABT will dance eight performances of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s new production of “The Sleeping Beauty.” There will be a second week of mixed repertory, including a world premiere. Details will be announced later.

Completing the center’s “Classic Dance Series” will be:

--Joffrey Ballet, Sept. 22-27, 1987. Repertory will include Sir Frederick Ashton’s “La Fille mal gardee” and other works previously announced.

--National Ballet of Canada, June 7-12, 1988. Repertory will include Glen Tetley’s “Alice,” set to music by David Del Tredici, and based on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” and John Cranko’s “Onegin,” based on the poem by Pushkin and set to music by Tchaikovsky.