BALLET REVIEW : Reconstructed ‘Nutcracker’ : Dance: The Kirov Ballet manages to deliver most of the usual narrative goods in Orange County. Lost in translation--the musicality.

Everybody, simply everybody, loves “The Nutcracker.” ’Tis the season. . . .

Everybody adores the candy-cane-kitschery and the Christmas tree that grows before our wondering eyes and the big bag of hocus-pocus tricks and the pretty snowflakes in tutus and the pirouetting roses and the hum-along tunes and the cutesy toys that spring conveniently to life and the mock-nasty hippety-hop rodents and the chronically sweet dancing dolls and theoh-so-nice little girl in toe shoes who falls in love with a wooden puppet who turns into a leaping prince.

It all warms even the most recalcitrant of cockles. It does. It really does. Doesn’t it?

Humbug.

“The Nutcracker” certainly has its place in the scheme of things, a gooey place, and that place certainly can be profitable. Very few productions of Tchaikovsky’s quasi-masterpiece, however, manage to balance artistic and commercial interests. Some don’t even try.

The world premiere took place at the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg a century ago. The choreography of Lev Ivanov reportedly wasn’t much of a success. In 1934, Vassily Vainonen staged a rather drastic revision, and it was his sometimes dubious and occasionally corrupt version that became the Soviet standard.

Over the years, the authorities who ran the lofty Kirov Ballet decided that “The Nutcracker,” a. k. a. “Shchelkunchik,” wasn’t worthy fare for regular Russian audiences or stellar Russian dancers. For the past two decades (or three--the statistics vary with the source), the ballet was reserved as a sort of graduation exercise for students of the Vanganova Academy.

Now, however, the Kirov, like everyone in what used to be the Soviet Union, desperately needs dollars. Ergo, “The Nutcracker” is being returned to grown-ups and the grown-up repertory. The scenery has been brushed up and fancified, new casts have been recruited from the upper ranks, and the invisible (or at least uncredited) hand of Oleg Vinogradov--masterminding choreographer-impresario in residence--has added some interpretive touches.

Tuesday night, the Russians came to the Orange County Performing Arts Center and performed their reconstituted “Shchelkunchik” for the first time anywhere. The Costa Mesa run continues through Sunday. Los Angeles will get to see the show--that definitely is the right noun--at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion from Dec. 22 to Jan. 3.

The kids probably will like it. The serious balletomanes probably won’t.

Although the magic effects looked creaky on what seemed a rather nervous opening night here, the Kirov does deliver most of the usual narrative goods. (Forget about Mother Ginger and the squiggly brood under her tea-cozy skirt.) Even under pathetic illumination, the late Simon Virsaladze’s old-fashioned canvas sets are picturesque in their flimsily gaudy way. (Forget about the anachronism of that silly modern-plastic tree in the party scene; and forget about the sets of one N. Y. Felezmyov, heralded in official announcements.)

The choreography for this “Nutcracker” is something of a muddle. Vainonen’s famous Waltz of the Snowflakes, replete with echoes of white swans, exerts its symphonic charm, and the assorted national dances--all essentially Russian--exult in their phony exotic accents. The corps de ballet executes patterns of equally engaging complexity whether impersonating cozy members of the German bourgeoisie or florid inmates of Tchaikovsky’s garden.

The should-be climactic grand pas de deux comes as something of a shock. The ballerina functions here primarily as a prop to be tossed about in an athletic, ungainly game of catch involving her prince plus four--count ‘em, four--additional cavaliers. It is good vulgar fun, but exultantly unmusical. Make that exultantly anti-musical.

Musicality, in fact, would not seem to have been Vainonen’s strong suit. The dancing is constantly permitted to contradict both the line and the dynamic of the wondrous score. And it frequently ignores the drama so carefully delineated by the composer.

The structure of the first act is compromised by an anticlimactic break in the middle, followed by an unneeded and unwanted intermission. Numerous popular passages have been truncated or omitted. There is no literal mime in this version, alas, but much busy gesturing and fatuous posing have been imposed.

This “authentic” “Nutcracker” does muster a bad deal of dramatic obfuscation. Little Masha (a. k .a. Clara a. k. a. Marie)--who certainly isn’t little in this literal version, and who changes her pretended size relative to the scenery from scene to scene--wakes up in her little bed just before the curtain mercifully falls.

“Gosh,” she telegraphs. “This was all a dream.”

But, gosh. She’s still wearing her stellar white tutu.

The performance on Tuesday, which presented the first of numerous casts, wasn’t notable for conviction or finesse. The corps demonstrated much of the stylish precision that used to be its hallmark. The principals were uneven.

Zhanna Ayupova smiled sweetly as Masha and went through her mini-ballerina routines deftly. She conveyed push-button ingenue charm from beginning to end, with no suggestion of emotional growth in the process. She wasn’t exactly charismatic.

Igor Zelensky, her high-flying prince, definitely was charismatic, even when he misjudged a soft landing and celebrated the climax of his final variation half-hidden behind the proscenium. Unfortunately, this “Nutcracker” asks rather little of its nominal hero.

Pyotr Rusanov seemed neither sinister nor mysterious nor amusing as the Drosselmeyer, just mildly pleasant. The caractere specialists did their things competently, and an oddly anticlimactic classical trio showcased the Mashas of two forthcoming casts: a willowy Larissa Lezhnina (whose pretty face harbors the best dimples in ballet) and a fleet Veronica Ivanova.

Conducting a decent little orchestra imported from St. Petersburg, Alexander Polianichko chose tempos that supported the dancers better than the composer. In so doing, he followed yet another a time-honored Russian tradition. The children’s voices in the snowflake waltz sounded as if they were piped in, via raucous tape, from Siberia.

According to a slip in the program magazine, the festive premiere was dedicated “to the recognition of World AIDS Day.” Ironically, that sad and noble occasion bore a symbolic subtitle: “A Day Without Art.” One doubts that this “Nutcracker” was what the organizers had in mind.

* “The Nutcracker,” Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m., Saturday-Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. Ends Sunday afternoon. $14-$55. All performances sold out. (714) 556-ARTS. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

Also Dec. 22 to Jan. 3 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles Music Center, 135 N . Grand Ave . , Los Angeles. Opening night and Sunday evenings, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, 8 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. $15-$55. (213) 972-7211.