BALLET REVIEW : A Fleet, Stylish ‘Napoli’

The Royal Danish Ballet is back in Southern California after a ridiculous, painful absence of 27 years. Sanity and civility, elegance and charm are back, too.

Relief, at last.

After the sloppy improvisation, not to mention the fatuous hype that marked--and marred--most of the recent visit by the once mighty Kirov of St. Petersburg, the Scandinavian finesse seems doubly reassuring. Also doubly compelling.

One may not look to the Danes for spectacular lifts, heroic extroversion or emotive thunder. The royal visitors do not bother much with surface flash, although they probably could muster some nifty circus tricks of their own if improperly motivated.

They are always tasteful but never prim, often exuberant yet seldom delirious. That seems natural. After all, they specialize in the romantic delicacies of August Bournonville. It is a matter of national pride.

The gentle Bournonville style implies the discipline of smooth, buoyant leaps; intricate, speedily articulated footwork aligned with strict placement of the upper torso; a subtle range of expression that springs from a fluent command of mime; tidy but hardly tiny flights of bravado.

Make no mistake. The Danes are flamboyant. But their flamboyance is masked with finesse. The most difficult maneuvers must look easy. Understatement enhances pathos. The surface reticence is illuminating.

These dancers nurture the Bournonville repertory from generation to generation. They pride themselves on a heritage of cultural conditioning. Take the case of “Napoli,” which opened a seven-performance season Tuesday night at the enterprising Orange County Performing Arts Center.

An inspired fusion of Italian street rituals, florid Gallic accents and polite Danish manners, this ever-popular fairy tale was first performed at the Royal Theater in 1842. Like all ballets of its period, it has undergone numerous additions and subtractions in the interim. The current version, mounted last March to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the premiere, is a triumph of tender, loving, enlightened care.

America has seen the third act of “Napoli” relatively often. It is a glittery, mock-folksy celebration that begins with a complex pas de six, develops as an explosion of competitive solos and ends with an all-embracing, stage-consuming tarantella. There have been few opportunities in this country, however, to place the climactic festivities in context with the other two acts.

The first, we discover, is an economical, astonishingly fluent juxtaposition of classical dance and extravagant mime. The formula plot evolves around a simple fisherman, Gennaro, who loves a pious maiden, Teresina. Neapolitan boy, unfortunately, loses Neapolitan girl in a boating accident.

In Act II, girl falls prey to Golfo, a sensuous demon of the deep who dwells in the Blue Grotto where he transforms mortal maidens into acquiescent aquatic nymphs. Boy ultimately saves girl, with a little spiritual help from a convenient monk.

Bournonville was, if nothing else, a moralist. He liked happy endings.

Before the hero can enjoy the comforting resolution, he must confront a corps of otherworldly spirits. This, after all, is the era of willowy Wilis and tutued Shades. Alas, there’s a rub: The original choreography for the Blue Grotto episode has been lost.

In the new production, Dinna Bjoern substitutes a plausible pattern of arrangements and reconstructions that suggest at least an honorable semblance of the Bournonville idiom. Her dutiful innovations are flanked by nice, conventional re-creations of the original outer acts (plus a few turn-of-the-century embellishments attributed to Hans Beck) as staged by a knowing pair of dancers-turned- regisseurs-turned-impresarios: Henning Kronstam and Frank Andersen.

The bright, spiffy, discreetly updated decors of Soeren Frandsen respect the wonted period tones, and Vesuvius glows nicely on the backdrop. The Neapolitan natives certainly look like pleasant peasants, though Gennaro’s short pants seem a bit too short to escape anachronism, and the inhabitants of the Blue Grotto resemble glitzy refugees from a ‘50s B-movie. The major magic trick--Teresina’s instant transformation from waif to naiad and back--is managed sweetly.

Alexander Sotnikov, a guest from Moscow, conducts a sensitive, locally recruited orchestra with infectious conviction. Achieving poignancy against the odds, he manages to make sense of the naive patchwork score contributed by the Messrs. Paulli, Helsted, Gade and Lumbye.

The opening night cast exuded authority in depth. Here, for once, was a carefully balanced ensemble--the rare, real thing--giving a performance in which every impulse found its proper resonance.

Lloyd Riggins, the 22-year-old American cast as Gennaro, proved that the essential light-and-fleet Bournonville style doesn’t have to be inherited. It can be learned. He may be better at executing leg-beats than at projecting character, but his pervasive innocence and his easy ardor were disarming.

In an interesting if not perfect partnership, Lis Jeppesen complemented him as a marvelously dainty, thoughtfully nuanced, distinctly sophisticated Teresina. Arne Villumsen, who used to be a dashing Royal Danish hero, returned here as a rather stately, quietly magnetic villain.

The perfectly integrated network of cameos employed a number of canny veterans. Niels Kehlet magnetized attention as the puffy macaroni-merchant who courts the heroine. Michael Bastian, cast as the lemonade vendor, gossiped with virtuosic glee to the calumny tune borrowed from Rossini’s Basilio. Flemming Ryberg, the comic street singer, mimed a brassy aria with the pointed self-satisfaction of a misplaced Pavarotti.

Nikolaj Hubbe, a nonchalant firebrand about to desert the Danes in favor of the New York City Ballet, literally made a star turn of a passing variation in the final scene. His worthy colleagues in this divertissement included the remarkably agile Johan Kobborg and at least four potential Teresinas: Mette Boedtcher, Christina Nilsson, Christina Olsson and Silja Schandorff.

The corps dancers demonstrated the soft-edged precision and flowing unanimity of phrase for which the company has long been celebrated. Equally important, they served as a delightfully motley collection of individuals in the street scenes.

Now, if only those infernally adorable kiddies on the bridge in the last act could clap in unison . . . .