DANCE REVIEW : Costumes Wear Dancers at Giddy Opening

American Ballet Theatre opened its annual season in the vast, hideous and hospitable spaces of Shrine Auditorium Tuesday night with one of those profitable, empty headed, gala-benefit, hippety-hop shows. The top ticket, not incidentally, fetched $500.

The stress out front was on partying and star-gazing. The stress on the stage was on lightweight fare. Given the socio-aesthetic context, that made a certain sense.

Apart from a lovely, momentary nod in the direction of early Balanchine, the program was devoted to parody. Much of it turned out to be intentional.

As a curtain-raiser, the company showed downtown Los Angeles the new production of Antony Tudor’s “Gala Performance” that had received its premiere in Orange County last December.

The amiable satire of national balletic manners and egos remained broadly delineated, though lavish new casting introduced Martine van Hamel as the chronically giddy Reine de la Danse from Moscow and Cynthia Gregory as the terminally regal Deesse de la Danse from Milan.

Alessandra Ferri--who actually happens to hail from Milan--returned to complete the competitive triangle as the perpetually flitty Fille de Terpsichore from Paris.

The Balanchine offering involved a somewhat fuzzy but often promising re-creation of “Ballet Imperial,” a.k.a. “Concerto No. 2.” First produced for Ballet Caravan in 1941, this elegant, sweeping, musically sensitive homage to the romantic grandeur of Tchaikovsky and Petipa served primarily as a showcase for the muted glitter of Susan Jaffe and the increasingly noble strength of Ross Stretton.

For most of the first-nighters, however, the piece de resistance came with the return of Leonide Massine’s blissfully fatuous ballet bouffe , “Gaiete Parisienne.” Ooh. Aah. Pow. Bam. Gosh. Wow. Yuck.

This potentially amusing, unpretentious little exercise in lyric nostalgia and comic cliche has been making the masses happy on several continents since 1938. ABT audiences had not seen it, however, since 1972.

The choreographer’s fond portraiture of a never-never land Second Epoch Paris, the quaint caricatures, the contrasting charms of three irresistible heroines, the innocent intertwining flirtations, the mock intrigues--all have assured this fragile period piece its continuing success. The accompanying lilt of some prime Offenbach, generously recycled by Manuel Rosenthal, has hardly hurt the cause.

None of these qualities were permitted to carry the new production, however. The costumes turned out to be the undisputed central attraction here. They are brash, bold, gaudy, splashy, electrically colored, bizarre, exaggerated and funny. They are cartoon costumes. They are outrageous. They give one an eye-ache.

They are costumes that tend to wear the dancers, rather than vice-versa. They also are costumes that tend to trash the ballet.

Unveiled in Tampa five weeks ago, they are the contribution ofChristian Lacroix. He is, they tell me, the daring darling of the fashion world. At least one admirer of the gentle “Gaiete Parisienne” milieu of yesteryear wishes he had stayed in the fashion world.

Given the inherent visual distraction, one still could admire Zack Brown’s lavish cafe-kitsch set, with the Eiffel Tower blinking benignly in the background. One could savor the orchestral finesse enforced in the pit by Jack Everly. One could applaud the hyper-frenzied performance of Johan Renval as the prickly Peruvian, counterbalanced by the cool and suave yet ardent Baron of Victor Barbee.

The women, however, had a hard time competing with their crazed couturier, not to mention memories of past “Gaietes.” Cheryl Yeager seemed prim and pallid as the Glove-Seller, a role that Alexandra Danilova had elevated into a tour of sexy force. Amy Rose just smiled demurely as the Flower-Merchant, while Jennet Zerbe struck proper prima-donna poses as La Lionne. The squealing corps of can-can girls couldn’t-couldn’t.

Under the blinding circumstances, one left the Shrine trying desperately to keep the rest of the evening in some sort of perspective.

“Gala Performance” somehow wasn’t as amusing as it should have been. The statuesque Van Hamel had to work very hard to convey the mock-fragility of the Russian ballerina, and, for all her frigid authority, Gregory’s heroic Italian zombie seemed a little blunt around the satirical edges.

Still, the Prokofiev pastiche sounded spiffy as conducted by Emil de Cou. Tudor’s discerning affection for the ridiculous was sympathetically evoked by Sallie Wilson. Hugh Laing’s designs looked splendidly tacky, and the assorted cavalier duties were dispatched with long-suffering deadpan elan by Ethan Brown and John Gardner.

In “Ballet Imperial,” the versatile--but not that versatile--Ballet Theatre dancers had some trouble making the abstract bravura look cool and easy. The rather ragged corps seemed nervous. Amanda McKerrow, the petite secondary ballerina, showed some strain in a complex entrance that should have dazzled. Rouben Ter-Arutunian’s backdrop, with its post card vista of St. Petersburg floating in the distance, seemed contrived and badly lit too.

Still, there were compensations: Jaffe’s tense classical aplomb in the central pas de deux, Stretton’s fluency and sensitivity, the soulful performance of the piano solos by Michael Boriskin, the reasonable accompaniment of the pit orchestra under Everly.

With repetition and careful coaching, this ballet may yet become genuinely imperial.