THEATER : Freshness in Center’s Next Stage Package : Most of the musicals in next season’s Broadway Series are proven hits of recent vintage.

Half full or half empty?

The question must be asked, now that the Orange County Performing Arts Center has announced next season’s Broadway Series of “A Chorus Line,” “Grand Hotel,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Les Miserables” and “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway.”

Is the programming better and fresher overall than past seasons, as Center officials themselves are saying? Far and away, the answer is yes. There are no warhorse revivals this time around, at least not the sort of golden oldies that have lived longer and drained more blood than Dracula.

There is no “South Pacific” or “Can-Can,” which were featured in the first series; no “Camelot,” which fortunately was canceled before it arrived for the second, or “Anything Goes,” which unfortunately wasn’t canceled, and no “The King and I,” which may have set a record for tedium in the third.

Nor does the upcoming series bloat itself on such offerings as “The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber: A Concert” or “Elvis: A Musical Celebration,” which for all their popularity could no more be called Broadway musicals than the big-band interludes during “Tonight Show” commercials.

Except for “Meet Me in St. Louis” (a period piece that cost a reported $6 million but closed in June after just seven months) and “A Chorus Line” (which dates back to 1976), all the shows next season are proven Broadway hits of recent vintage. That’s three out of five. And “St. Louis” might have been a hit, says its advocates, if not for the New York snobbery of key critics.

As to “A Chorus Line,” there can be no quarrel with its historic significance as a groundbreaking American musical nor with its merits as singular entertainment. A production doesn’t become the longest-running Broadway show ever without giving real value. But the tour producer’s notion that the show’s April closing in New York has created a wave of “Chorus Line” nostalgia in Orange County--as he claims has happened nationwide--is open to debate.

All sorts of amateur troupes, always hungry for unreleased material, have licensed the stage rights to the show ever since it closed. Generating audience fervor may not be so easy, however. In Los Angeles, for instance, a critically acclaimed professional production of “A Chorus Line” called it quits Sunday because of mediocre ticket sales.

Maybe the purported nostalgia for a “farewell tour” of the authorized Broadway version will materialize at the Center. Certainly, the Indianapolis-based producer, Robert Young Associates, is counting on it. Young and others are putting the show on the road for 50 weeks in a classic bus-and-truck operation at a total cost of about $750,000.

“A Chorus Line” will shake the dust from its feet in Costa Mesa immediately following a very hectic schedule: one week split between Pasadena and Santa Barbara and another week split between Fresno and Albuquerque. With that kind of mileage, can the performers be expected to duplicate the quality of the Broadway original? Sure they can.

Meanwhile, “Grand Hotel” is slated for the Center after it plays for four weeks at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angles, according to New York producer Marvin Krauss. The arrival of “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” will follow a four-month run in Los Angeles at the Shubert Theatre.

This is not to impugn the freshness of these shows, both of which are still on Broadway and both of which are touring for the first time. It is merely a reminder that you can catch them sooner than later, if freshness is a paramount concern and you don’t mind taking a drive.

In fact, that drive may be the only way to guarantee seeing two of the Tony-winning performances from the original Robbins show, because both performers are signed for the Los Angeles production but have not been signed yet for the rest of the tour. Given the wear and tear of the road, they might well choose to do other things by the time the show gets to the Center.

Which brings us to the matter of touting the number of Tonys earned by the original productions. “Collectively, these five musicals have won 28 Tony Awards,” Center president Thomas R. Kendrick pointed out last week in an interview. “And they’ve had about twice that many nominations.”

Absolutely true. But all Tonys do not carry equally translatable weight for touring productions. Winning performers who don’t go on the road with a show obviously can’t be counted, while Tonys in technical categories such as set and lighting, which can only be approximated on the road, ought not to count as much as those for more substantive categories such as best score.

Of the five shows coming to the Center, just two--”Les Miz” and “A Chorus Line” --won Tonys for their scores. Ironically, they’re also the least fresh. (“Les Miz” opened on Broadway in 1987 and played for 14 months in Los Angeles.) By the same token, they’re also the only two with Tonys for best book, another substantive category with durable value.

On the other hand, Tommy Tune won two Tonys for “Grand Hotel” this year--best choreography and best direction--and he will oversee the road production. Similarly, Jerome Robbins, who won for best direction of “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” last year, will also oversee his road show. Both men have reputations as sticklers for quality and can be expected to put their artistic stamp on these outings.

As for “Meet Me in St. Louis,” it is harder to predict what the quality is likely to be. The show, which cost a reported $6 million on Broadway, got four Tony nominations this year, all in substantive categories: best musical, score, book and choreography. But it didn’t win in any of them. And the lavish costumes and opulent scenery came in for more praise than the musical itself, despite the nominations.

The “St. Louis” road production, which is currently being assembled and has yet to be cast, will include the original costumes and props. But the size of the set--which featured fireworks, an ice-skating rink and a clanging trolley car on Broadway--will probably be cut down.

Finally, it should be noted that the Center won’t have produced any of these shows, no matter how mightily it may strive to make it appear otherwise. When Kendrick calls last season’s “Gypsy” revival “our production”--as he did recently in a sales letter to tens of thousands of potential subscribers--it is wishful thinking. And misleading.

The Center had no more to do with producing that show, which went on to become a Broadway smash, than you or I did. The Center merely booked it, for which it deserves all due credit, but no more.