THE KIROV BY ANY OTHER NAME : Officially, It May Again Be the Maryinsky, but Ballet Fans Just Call This Company Legendary

The Kirov Ballet of Leningrad traces its history back to 1738. But the company Orange County will see, Tuesday through May 24 at the Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, is “quite new,” even newer than what audiences saw when the company was here in 1989.

“There are new stars, a new corps de ballet, a lot of new people, and then there is new repertoire,” says company artistic director Oleg Vinogradov.

The new repertoire consists of “a garland of ballets by American and English choreographers,” he says. These include George Balanchine’s “Apollo,” “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” and “Scotch Symphony,” and Antony Tudor’s “The Leaves Are Fading,” all to be danced by the company on Thursday, May 21, and Friday, May 22.

The Russian heritage will be represented by Vinogradov’s restaging of Leonid Lavrovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” on Tuesday and Wednesday and May 23 and 24.

Founded in 1738, the company was known for almost two centuries as the Maryinsky Ballet, after the famous theater in St. Petersburg where it danced.

After the Communist Revolution, however, St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad, and the company was renamed the Kirov in 1935, after Sergei Kirov, the assassinated leader of the Leningrad Communist Party.

Today, Leningrad has reverted to its earlier name of St. Petersburg. Similarly, the Kirov, which maintains that name only during this tour, will revert to the name Maryinsky Ballet or the St. Petersburg Ballet in the future. Both names were used on posters in Europe during that leg of the current tour.

Whatever it is called, the company will always be known for producing such legendary dancers and choreographers as Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinsky, Mikhail Fokine, Tamara Karsavina, Balanchine, Alexandra Danilova and, more recently, Rudolf Nureyev (who defected in 1961), Natalia Makarova (who defected in 1970) and Mikhail Baryshnikov (who defected in 1974).

A new generation of dancers, such as Altynai Assylmuratova, Larissa Lezhnina and Andris Liepa stand to inherit or be crushed by that weighty mantle.

Assylmuratova and her husband, Konstantin Zaklinsky, were scheduled to appear locally during the 1989 tour, but they both had to return to the Soviet Union when Assylmuratova’s mother became seriously ill.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the company also finds itself in a new and serious situation. Once sheltered and funded by the government, the Kirov is now financially on its own, says Vinogradov, who became artistic director in 1977.

“The situation in the company, as in the whole state, has become worse because the government does not give the necessary amount of money for the company,” he says. “So these tours are important from two points of view--financial and artistic.

“Financial, because on tour the theater can earn money and use it for its own purposes. We stopped giving a lot of money to the state and now the majority of the money goes to the theater.

“From the creative point of view, touring is also important. We show what we can dance well, and we can watch the productions of other companies and take in the experiences of the dancers of the whole world.”

Despite their financial problems, the Russians are planning to give some of their proceeds to assist Los Angeles.

“We Russians are very thankful to the United States for its humanitarian aid,” Vinogradov says. “That’s why on this tour we want to pay something back, especially to help Los Angeles. Five dollars from each ticket will go to the fund to help rebuild Los Angeles.”

In New York, where the company will dance June 22 through July 3, the income from one performance will go “entirely to the help of Los Angeles,” he said.

The Kirov moves on to the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, May 26-31, to dance “Swan Lake,” “La Bayadere” and a program of mixed repertory.

What: Kirov Ballet.

When: Tuesday, May 19, through Sunday, May 24.

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

Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Street exit. North to Town Center Drive. (Center is one block east of South Coast Plaza.)

Wherewithal: $20 to $65.

Where to call: (714) 556-2787.