Center Won’t Refund Kirov Tickets

The Orange County Performing Arts Center will not refund tickets to the Kirov Ballet programs that were to have featured principal dancers Altynai Assylmuratova and Konstantin Zaklinsky. The couple, husband and wife, returned to the Soviet Union on Wednesday to be with Assylmuratova’s mother, a cancer patient whose condition has deteriorated.

“Casting and repertory are subject to change without notice,” Center spokesman Richard Bryant said Thursday.

Zaklinsky was to have danced Prince Desire in “The Sleeping Beauty” this Sunday. Assylmuratova was to have danced Medora and Zaklinsky was to have danced Lankedem in “Le Corsaire” Tuesday and Thursday. New casting has not been announced. The Kirov’s nine-day engagement at the Center begins today.