Michael Smuin to Direct ABT Gala

The 50th-anniversary gala celebration of the American Ballet Theatre has been in the planning stages for months. To be given at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, Jan. 14, the performance will be directed by Michael Smuin, former artistic director of San Francisco Ballet (1973-84) and an ABT alumnus (he danced in the company, 1966-73).

“Misha (Baryshnikov, former ABT director) called me last summer and asked me to put this together. I asked him why me, and he said: ‘Because you’ve already done a 50th-anniversary gala. Now do ours.’ ”

Smuin recalls that he created the three-act, 50th San Francisco Ballet anniversary program over a period of three years, and with a cast headed by Gene Kelly. When it was performed in War Memorial Opera House, it ran for eight consecutive nights.

On the phone from New York, Smuin says: “My job with the ABT gala is to tell the history of the company in as entertaining a way as possible. What I did first, before I met with anyone from the company, was write a scenario and make a budget. When I got here with them, both were approved.”

The plan is this, he says: “There are two acts, each one more or less covering 25 years. Leonard Bernstein is writing a fanfare to be played on the plaza before the gala, and inside, as an overture.

“There will be, all told, five long film clips, detailing the company’s history. I’m trying to get as many of the illustrious star alumni to appear--it’s not so easy, since many of them have died.”

Major appearances, however, have been promised by choreographers Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins and Eliot Feld, designer Oliver Smith and ballerinas Alicia Alonso, Carla Fracci and Natalia Makarova.

“And, at the end, there will be an anniversary waltz, with perhaps 30 couples onstage.”

Tickets will be priced at $1,250, $1,000, $300, $85, $50, $25 and $20.

In this project, Smuin--who has spend much of the last five years as a Broadway choreographer--says he is working closely with ABT executive director Jane Hermann. Because of the cost of producing the one-night-only gala, a tour version of the program will be part of the repertory for the company’s spring tour.

The ABT spring tour opens in Miami Jan. 29 and closes in Washington April 8, with intermediate stops in Chicago, San Francisco, Costa Mesa (March 6-18) and Toronto. The company will dance in Los Angeles in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center next summer (July 31-Aug. 12).

“We won’t be able to have all the special guests on tour, of course, but, since there are alumni everywhere, we hope to incorporate appearances by ABT people at each stop. In Chicago, for instance, it would be great to have Maria Tallchief (a ballerina from the 1940s) take part.”

Smuin’s job will be done Jan. 15, however. After that, he reports, his next project is a musical based on James Clavell’s “Shogun,” with a score by Paul Chihara, set to open at the Kennedy Center in May.

A couple of graphs to come on Smuin talking about his directing the ABT, currently without an artistic director since September, when Baryshnikov quit in a well-publicized power struggle with the board after nine years with the company.

PEOPLE: Dean Boal, director of arts and performance programs at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., has been appointed president of the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, to succeed Roger Jacobi, effective Dec. 3. . . . Rosa Vento, Sunny Joy Langton, Paul Austin Kelly and Rodney Nolan are the principals in the Long Beach Opera production of Puccini’s “La Rondine,” next Sunday through Nov. 19 in Center Theater at the Long Beach Convention Center. Stage director is Hugo de Ana; conductor is Michael Recchiuti. . . .