BALLET REVIEW : Paris Offers 2nd Look at Nureyev’s Tinseltown ‘Cinderella’

Familiarity with Rudolf Nureyev’s Tinseltown-quirk production of “Cinderella,” which the Paris Opera Ballet has brought to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, does not exactly breed enchantment.

The concept remains stubbornly vapid, the choreography trivial, the scenic milieu muddled. Poor Prokofiev is still sacrificed on the altar of cutesiness.

Nevertheless, the intrinsic perversions lose their shock appeal with repetition. A second viewing at least frees the eyes to search the cluttered stage for buried detail.

The would-be chic show-biz extravaganza unfolded Wednesday night without the glitches of mechanics and execution that had marred the opening. This time, the dragon on the opium-den sign (a quaint opium den downtown in 1930s Hollywood?) actually flashed his neon tail. Light bulbs materialized to trace the anatomical curves of the single Betty Grable statue that survives to dominate the local stage (Paris musters four).

The elaborate scene changes functioned fairly smoothly. The massive King Kong puppet rose obediently to the rafters, on cue. The dancers bumped into each other only when the clumsiness was intentional (most regrettably in the phallic jokes of a Baroque interlude involving male ballerinas and a tumbling pillar).

A new set of principals attested to the flexibility and strength of the Paris roster. Certain accents and interpretive values shifted, but standards did not.

Elisabeth Platel, who succeeded Sylvie Guillem in the title role, is less glamorous and less acrobatic than her celebrated predecessor. Platel doesn’t even try to graze her ears with her toes. She does dance, however, with compelling softness and suavity, does exude childlike innocence, does manage the transition from all-purpose waif to Ginger Rogers to surrendering princess with rapture and charm.

Laurent Hilaire bounds, leaps and turns in the air with speedy precision as the handsome, nearly anonymous matinee idol. He partners Platel with nice romantic ardor. It isn’t his fault that the choreographer and costume designer allow the second-act crowd to obliterate the hero.

Michael Denard brings the authority of lusty self-satisfaction to the mime of the cigar-chomping deus ex machina. We now discover, incidentally, that the program synopsis unblushingly calls the character Pygmalion Diaghilev. He also manages the utterly irrelevant Groucho Marx solo without obvious embarrassment.

The supporting roles were entrusted to such paragons as Florence Clerc as the accident-prone stepsister, Clotilde Vayer as her tough alter ego and Bernard Boucher as an outrageous stepmother who wants, above all, to keep on Trocking.

Alain Bogreau introduced a properly silly caricature of the movie director (for some strange reason, the official credits call him a stage director). Eric Quillere repeated his deft Jackie Coogan imitation as the studio gofer. Jacque Namont preened crisply as the dancing master with the chronic Benno-complex.

Fine ensemble. Fatuous vehicle.