Kirov Ballet to Dance in Orange County

The Kirov Ballet of Leningrad will make the only Southern California stop on its 1989 North American tour at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa next August, it was confirmed Thursday.

Repertory during the Aug. 18-27 engagement will include the Kirov version of Petipa’s “The Sleeping Beauty” and a recent reconstruction of his full-length “Le Corsaire,” along with a mixed bill of works by choreographers including Roland Petit, Maurice Bejart and Oleg Vinogradov, director of the Kirov Ballet.

On July 3, after a month of appearances in Canada, the company will open a three-week New York run at the Metropolitan Opera House, which is sponsoring the tour. The Kirov will then move to the Kennedy Center in Washington and War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco before reaching the Performing Arts Center.

Among the artists heading the touring company will be Altynai Assylmuratova and Faruk Ruzimatov, who appeared as guests with American Ballet Theatre in New York in May, and Olga Chenchikova, Tatiana Terekhova, Galina Mezentseva, Lubov Kunakova, Konstantin Zaklinsky and Alexander Lunev.

Irina Kolpakova, 55, will be on the tour as a teacher and ballet master and may dance during the Orange County engagement.

There will be nine performances at the center: three of “The Sleeping Beauty,” three of “Le Corsaire” and three evenings of mixed repertory that mostly vary from one another.

The Kirov, generally acknowledged as the preeminent exponent of Russian classicism, made its last area appearance in May, 1986, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles during the company’s first U.S. visit in 22 years.