DANCE REVIEW : Children Shine in L.A. Classical Ballet ‘Nutcracker’

Los Angeles Classical Ballet returned to Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Thursday with a not-so-secret weapon: kids. Among the many resident, visiting and even televised “Nutcracker” stagings available to Southland audiences in 1992, this is the biggest with real children in nearly all the places that matter.

Where adults doing moppet-shtick in the Kirov “Nutcracker” are cloying, the L.A. Classical youngsters manage to invigorate even the lamest ideas in a still problematic 10-year-old production credited to David Wilcox and Terri Lewis (with additional choreography by Alexander Kalinen).

The evening begins strongly with a carefully staged, artfully varied Christmas party weakened only by flat doll dances. The mouse battle, however, proves merely a string of production effects with no coherent use of the stage or performers. Crummy lighting drains the magic from the Christmas tree set-change, and the Russian classicism attempted in the snow scene exposes the limitations of the company women’s corps.

Act II looks like it’s set in a bank and the dancing reaches something like a 10-year low for the company in the Spanish divertissement where, clearly, the participants haven’t learned the same steps or timing. Once again, the Russian Dance runs nearly twice as long as Tchaikovsky intended, but this is one of the few moments where you’re watching a genuine performance , rather than a dancing-school recital.

Among the soloists, Helena Ross makes a gracious Snow Queen and Vladimir Teriokhin a Snow King impressive in Soviet-style placement but unreliable technically. Lisa Ann Cueto (Dewdrop) and Tzer-Shing Wang (Mirlitons) each dance with warmth and security, while Yan Lin (Arabian) and Li Zhang (Chinese) win victories of personal skill over choreographic kitsch.

Looking sensationally slimmed this season, Vitaly Artyushkin emphasizes ardor over exactitude as the Nutcracker Prince, while Alla Khaniashvili (his wife) exudes her usual cool precision as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Lourdes Romero (Clara) and Dudley Davies (Drosselmeyer) perhaps work the hardest of anyone to put over the plot points and key relationships of the ballet.

Patrick Flynn conducts a generally persuasive account of the score, although the Snow vocalise is one place in this “Nutcracker” where children are definitely needed and conspicuously absent. Also among the missing: the refined, womanly Galina Shlyapina, announced for this engagement but reportedly dancing elsewhere for most of the season.