DANCE REVIEW : Cast Changes in ‘Nutcracker’ : Several new principals dance in the San Francisco Ballet’s Sunday evening performance, part of a 9-day engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

The San Francisco Ballet has been generous in casting its 12 performances of “The Nutcracker” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. No fewer than eight different Sugar Plum Fairies are scheduled to be partnered by seven different Cavaliers by the time the nine-day engagement ends Sunday, unless injuries intervene.

Some of the variety results, of course, from rotation of roles. A soloist in the Arabian Dance one night becomes a Butterfly in the Waltz of the Flowers another. A different Butterfly graduates to be a Sugar Plum Fairy later.

And so it goes.

Katita Waldo had brought sensuous persuasion to the inanities of the Arabian dance on Friday; she carried over some of the languor into the more active kind of dancing required of Butterfly on Sunday night.

Elizabeth Loscavio, the plumy Butterfly on Friday, became a faceless ingenue of a Sugar Plum on Sunday. Prone to rolling over terminations, she offered some of her best dancing in the series of whipping turns that closed the coda of the pas de deux.

Loscavio was partnered by a lanky, handsome but somewhat technically insecure (though risk-taking) Stephen Legate.

Among other changes, a warm, pliant Alaina Albertson danced a generous Snow Queen; Giorgio Madia made a striking, supportive Snow King.

Jennifer Karius showed precise angularity and cool detachment as the Dancing Doll. Though Paul Gibson couldn’t quite manage accurate heel-clicks in the bulky Bear Doll costume, he did convey an winning sense of frolic.

Denis de Coteau again conducted the Pacific Symphony, which this time turned raucous in the big statements of the pas de deux.

* The San Francisco Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker” continues through Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $14 to $50. Information: (714) 480-3232.