MUSIC / DANCE : The Australian Ballet: Nurturing Young Talent, Winning Acclaim

When the Australian Ballet comes to the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, August 7, there won’t be any easily recognizable names leading the way. The focus, this time, is on young talent: the kind of talent that has been nurtured by Maina Gielgud, the company’s artistic director since 1983; talent in which she has such confidence that she is fielding four casts of “Giselle,” talent that has scored recent successes in such discriminating ballet capitals as Moscow and London.

But the limited experience of the dancers doesn’t mean there will be a limited repertoire.

“I’ve tried to bring the ballets that I thought would suit the dancers--develop them and show them off,” Gielgud says. “I’ve kept the balance between contemporary and classical, continued bringing in the best works being done for other companies while also having works created on the company. That side of things is growing now, because I think the dancers have a solid enough foundation.”

During the 1970s, the Australian Ballet was known to Americans as a mostly anonymous ensemble dancing behind such big-name stars as Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. In fact, the last time the 28-year-old company performed in this country was in 1976, when it traveled with Fonteyn in Ronald Hynd’s “The Merry Widow.”

Gielgud inherited an established venture, but events leading up to her arrival forced her to rebuild almost from scratch. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, directorial changes, financial instability and labor troubles that culminated in a dancers strike that caused many of the more established company members to either retire or depart.

The Australian Ballet found the strong directorial hand it needed in Gielgud, a British-born ballerina who had recently stopped performing after a career that began at 15. She is the niece of the actor Sir John Gielgud, who early on tried to steer her away from her chosen career by telling her that ballet was “too much like hard work.”

“Maina coincided with a whole new generation of dancers,” notes company member Stephan Baynes, whose ballet “Catalyst” will be on the opening night program, preceding “Giselle.” “She really had the job of building (the company) up from scratch, but there were good foundations there.”

Gielgud reintroduced a choreographic workshop project that had fallen by the wayside. It is through these workshops that Baynes’ abilities became evident. After several works choreographed under workshop auspices, “Catalyst,” which is set to Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos, is his first commissioned work. It premiered in May and is receiving its U.S. premiere in Costa Mesa.

Conducting both “Catalyst” and “Giselle” will be someone whom longtime ballet-goers will find familiar: John Lanchbery, who was American Ballet Theatre’s music director in the late 1970s and is now the Australian Ballet’s principal guest conductor.

“Catalyst” joins Gielgud’s “Giselle” on the first program; the second program is a triple bill of Serge Lifar’s “Suite en blanc” a rarely seen 1943 work created for the Paris Opera Ballet; Kylian’s “Return to the Strange Land,” an elegiac series of pas de trois and pas de deux set to Janacek piano pieces: and David Lichine’s “Graduation Ball,” a frothy 1940s bonbon in which cadets and young girls join forces under the watchful eye of a comic headmistress.

What: The Australian Ballet.

When: Aug. 7 through Aug. 12.

Where: The Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

Whereabouts: One block east of South Coast Plaza shopping center.

Wherewithal: $14 to $47.

Where To Call: (714) 556-2787.

MORE MUSIC/DANCE:

The Ysaye String Quartet will play Mozart’s Quartet No. 19 (“Dissonant”) and Dvorak’s Quartet in A-flat, Opus 105, today, Aug. 2, at 8 p.m. at the McGaugh Elementary School auditorium, 1698 Bolsa Ave., Seal Beach. The program, part of the 16th annual Seal Beach Chamber Music Festival, is free. (213) 596-4749.