BALLET REVIEW : Royal Danes at Universal Amphitheatre

Who knew that a major marvelous dance venue has been hiding out in Los Angeles all these years? One with unobstructed sight lines, level perspective and a bonus of 6,000 seats?

Not even the folks at Universal Amphitheatre, who, without much ado, brought the soloists of the Royal Danish Ballet to their stage Sunday night. As presenters, however, they flunked the first course--attempting to treat their virtuosic guests like the usual attractions, Willie Nelson and Tiffany.

A ballet company depends on such niceties as a fact sheet or program to inform the audience on matters of what will be danced by whom. No such luck Sunday. Discovering at the last minute that none had been printed, the touring Danes submitted a few titles and names to be read.

Poor confused audiences. After seeing TV ads announcing this event--outtakes of “Swan Lake” that a Universal representative called “generic ballet footage”--they could find neither any truth in advertising nor hoped-for enlightenment at the actual performance.

Happily, there were compensations. A new generation of dancers, one that has evolved over the last few years, held to an exceptionally high standard. Even without Alexander Kolpin, currently sidelined but recently seen in Don Bradburn’s production of “Billy the Kid” at UC Irvine, the male contingent needed no apologies. The women, too, shone as paragons of classical purity, Danish style.

As usual in these touring soloists ventures, the company defined itself both in contemporary and traditional terms; it turned as eagerly to ballets by young choreographic Turks as to de rigueur samples of 19th-Century Bournonville.

The most daring entry was the local premiere, a work titled “Sad Songs” by the Dutch-born Nils Christe. Daring because it uses the same score as Antony Tudor’s 1937 masterpiece, “Dark Elegies.” Christe used Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder” (Songs of Childhood Death) wisely and with tasteful sensitivity. Awash in poetic sorrow, it would hardly attract a circusmeister, however.

Clearly Christe took cues from Tudor, keeping the tone of the ballet abstract-elegiac. The women wore dark knee-length dresses, with the men in flowing shirts but tights, not trousers. He also showed the influence of Jiri Kylian in such devices as vertical rigid-body lifts and telltale expressionistic touches.

Throughout his evocative choreography he relied mostly on duets, but he did not slight the communal sense of grief that Tudor immortalized. In the finale, which featured the whole ensemble, were its manifestations, all in orderly integration.

Hans van Manen, also a Dutchman, contributed the other modern piece: “Septet Extra.” But he went against his typically serious grain this time and attempted a spoof of ballet conceits. Twisting gender roles and turning musical flourishes into sight-gag equivalents, he targeted insider jokes and thereby missed his audience mark somewhat in these Jules Feifferish cartoons.

In between came some tried-and-true Bournonville--the pas de deux from “Flower Festival in Genzano,” a showcase for the superbly fluent Nikolaj Hubbe (who did triple air turns) and the porcelain-delicate Heidi Ryom. Finally, the whole contingent assembled for the pas de six and tarantella from “Napoli,” which offered solos for many, including the tall Christina Nilsson, whose balances were astonishing and Lloyd Riggins, a thrilling paragon of line and torso control and epaulement.