HEDGEHOGS, SEX AND TOE SHOES : Great Britain’s Royal Ballet Has It All in a Single Engagement

Anthony Dowell, artistic director of Great Britain’s Royal Ballet, likes to describe the company as “very versatile,” and the description truly seems apt.

The Royal’s current engagement, through May 8 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, presents a broader range of subjects than most first-rate companies might muster--drug- and sex-obsessed royalty, gang rapists, whimsical animal characters and Shakespearean elfin comedy.

“We’re flesh and blood people who are able to portray emotions not normally associated with ballet,” Dowell stressed. “We’re able to be real people and not just fairy-tale dancers.”

Take Kenneth MacMillan’s full-length “Mayerling,” a story-ballet about the murder-suicide of Crown-Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary and his 17-year-old mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera. Created in 1978, the ballet draws on the heavy Romanticism created by the heady music of Liszt. It will be danced in Costa Mesa on Tuesday and Wednesday.

MacMillan continued his interest in dark, serious subjects up to the end. (He died in 1992, after collapsing backstage at the Royal Opera House during a revival of “Mayerling.”) His last ballet, “The Judas Tree” (May 5 and 6), which he created that year, took as its subject gang rape, murder and suicide in London’s Docklands. It will be danced in Orange County by Irek Mukhamedov and Viviana Durante, the ballet’s first cast.

On the lighter side will be Frederick Ashton’s “Tales of Beatrix Potter” (May 7 and 8), in which the dancers wear costumes of mice, pigs and hedgehogs--characters familiar from Potter’s beloved Victorian children’s tales. Originally created for a film made in 1971, the choreography was revived as a live ballet in 1992.

Ashton already had proved a master of subtle narrative when he captured the nuances and complexities of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with astonishing compression, veracity and wit in his 1964 “The Dream.” Almost every major element of the play is included, and John Lanchbery has adroitly, wonderfully arranged and filled out the familiar Mendelssohn score with other music by the composer. This ballet is paired with “Beatrix Potter”; one work for kids, one for adults.

Of another magnitude of genius entirely is Ashton’s “A Month in the Country,” a 1976 ballet based on Turgenev’s 1850 play. The ballet begins almost in farce and ends in utter heartbreak as it chronicles the shattering impact the love of a charismatic young tutor has on various members of a Russian household.

This work will also be danced on May 5 and 6, separated from “The Judas Tree” by shorter pieces by Balanchine, Ashton and William Forsythe. Fairy tales, sex, love and toe shoes: exactly the variety Dowell was talking about.

* MUSIC LISTINGS, Page 16

* DANCE LISTINGS, Page 16

What: The Royal Ballet of Great Britain.

When: Tuesday, May 3, through May 6 at 8 p.m.; May 7 at 3 and 8 p.m.; May 8 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.

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

Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Street exit north, turn right onto Town Center Drive.

Wherewithal: $20 to $70.

Where to call: (714) 556-2787.

More Music / Dance

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Beth Burns’ Santa Ana-based company will dance its “Your Neighbor as Yourself” spring concert tonight, April 28, through Saturday, April 30, at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. The four works on the program include “HomeFree,” set to live music by Samite of Uganda. (714) 854-4646.

IN COSTA MESA: L.A. CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Christof Perick will lead the orchestra in a Beethoven program on Saturday, April 30, at 8 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Jean-Yves Thibaudet will solo in the Piano Concerto No. 2. The program is sponsored by the Philharmonic Society. (714) 553-2422.

IN FULLERTON: PIANISTS AND SINGERS

The Fullerton Friends of Music will present a “Four Hands and Four Voices” program, which includes Schumann’s rarely performed “Spanische Liebeslieder” for four vocalists and two pianists Sunday, May 1, at 3:30 p.m. at Sunny Hills High School. Free admission. (714) 525-5836.