Opener Trips Up Paris Opera Ballet : Dance review: The troupe suffers technical bloopers, marring its classical program at Cerritos Center. Balletic modernism proves more reliable on the first night of a U.S. tour.

In the already crowded annals of ballet-vaudeville at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, the opening Thursday of the Paris Opera Ballet Ensemble surely qualifies as the most disastrous any company has yet suffered.

From the bungled first lift in the pas de six from “Napoli” at the start of the program to the bungled last lift in the suite from “Raymonda” at the very end, blatant technical errors disfigured every single classical showpiece except the second-act pas de deux from “Giselle.”

We’re not talking about the niceties of ballet technique here. The 17 Parisians on view looked splendidly coached in the niceties, especially those of placement and those involving the refined, expressive use of hands, arms and shoulders.

No, we’re talking about the danseur who nearly dropped his ballerina in the “Don Quixote” pas de deux--and then fell at the end of a showpiece passage. Or the ballerina desperately struggling to hold her balance in the final pose of her “Corsaire” variation. Or the youth who tripped merely crossing the stage in Bournonville’s three-minute “Jockey Dance.”

Even worse, the group choreography revealed that the Ensemble hadn’t begun to address the basics of unison dancing: the exact angle of everyone’s extended arms and legs, the exact moment when those limbs should all be raised or lowered. As a result, the exquisite pas de dix from “Raymonda” became a shambles--scandalous for artists representing one of the world’s great companies.

Dancing to tape on the first stop of their 10-day, American tour, even the exemplary Isabelle Guerin as Giselle and Elisabeth Platel as Raymonda sometimes appeared unmusical: unfamiliar and out-of-sync with their unyielding accompaniments. Each, however, repaid the closest attention--Guerin for her exactitude and ability to hover magically in a cloud of white chiffon, Platel for the sheer authority and majestic scale of her dancing.

Otherwise, however, balletic modernism found the Ensemble at its most reliable on Thursday--even if the intricate lyric gymnastics of Oscar Araiz’s “Adagietto” duet (to Mahler) proved dangerously under-rehearsed. Kader Belarbi had danced the “Corsaire” pas de deux efficiently, but brought genuine passion to the enigmatic gestural vocabulary of “Selim,” a moody Michel Kelemenis solo to Arab vocal music.

The piece didn’t easily yield its secrets, but Belarbi kept its expressive detail strongly in focus, as did Charles Jude in another solo: Ella Jarowzevitch’s taut, introverted “Pierrot Lunaire,” set to Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata. Jude served as a capable partner for Guerin in the “Giselle” excerpts, but his rapt concentration here and his spectacular mastery of balances-in-extension (some even longer than Guerin’s) made his Pierrot the most memorable achievement of the evening.

In their best moments, Florence Clerc, Delphine Moussin, Laurent Novis and, especially, Jose Martinez danced well enough to inspire at least moderate hopes for a less accident-prone second program on Friday.

Inevitably, the two Bournonville excerpts Thursday looked Frenchified in style but generally accurate (apart from the unidiomatic slow tempos of the “Napoli” music). However, the Parisians offered Petipa’s “Raymonda” and “Don Quixote” choreographies in clumsy and often downright perverse versions credited to the late Rudolf Nureyev.

It’s no secret that Nureyev and other great defecting Russian dancers demanded choreography assignments from companies as the price of their guest appearances, but that’s no reason to perpetuate their mediocrity and self-aggrandizement indefinitely. The authentic Petipa choreographies do exist in notation and on videotape. Why settle for anything less?

* Paris Opera Ballet Ensemble closes tonight at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. (800) 300-4345. Tickets: $10-$65.