New L.A. Ballet Director Dances With High Hopes and Controversy : Dance: John Clifford’s ambitious eight-figure budget is being questioned as well as promotional statements about featured dancers’ backgrounds.

Since mid-April, when a three-page ad appeared in a Cal State University dance concert program announcing the rebirth of Los Angeles Ballet, founding artistic director John Clifford has been in a hurry to establish the new company--his third with Los Angeles in the title.

The former New York City Ballet principal has obtained a $975,000 grant from the Mervyn’s and Target retail chains. He has secured the exclusive West Coast rights to George Balanchine’s “Nutcracker” (not seen locally in 35 years) and plans to present it in two Southland venues and other Southwestern cities later this year. And he has enlisted the William Morris Agency in the company’s touring plans and fund-raising efforts, held auditions and acquired studio space.

But there are also signs that Clifford may not be able to deliver on all his promises. Many of Clifford’s claims for his company’s funding cannot be confirmed, and some of his statements about the backgrounds of his featured dancers strike dance community observers as exaggerations.

The biggest questions surrounding the venture are about money. Clifford, who declined to speak to The Times except to confirm statements already made to the press, estimates that the company’s first-season budget will be about $11 million.

Yet the only funding source so far announced, the $975,000 grant, will be paid out in $325,000 installments over three years, raising the million-dollar question: How will Clifford fund the first eight-figure resident company in the city’s history?

According to Dance/USA, which compiles dance data and represents dance organizations in Washington, Clifford’s projected $11-million budget would immediately place L.A. Ballet among the eight largest ballet companies in the nation. “If it happens, it will be the first time that any company has gone from zero to an eight-figure budget,” said Bonnie Brooks, Dance/USA executive director.

“[Clifford’s] $11 million sounds a little inflated,” said Hal Ray, the senior agent and vice president of William Morris. The agency was responsible for securing the Mervyn’s/Target grant, he said, and is interested in helping the ballet company find more backers. It is also advertised as the company’s tour booking agent. Ray noted, however, that William Morris is not involved in the company’s day-to-day affairs.

A June 23 party, hosted by L.A. Ballet advisory board members Princess Marie-Christine of Belgium, Lilly Tartikoff and Carole Wells Doheny, was thrown to raise money at the company’s 16,000-square-foot studios in Santa Monica. Clifford solicited $100,000 donations, in exchange for which individual studios in the new headquarters would be named for the donors. Clifford told The Times on Friday that “some pledges” resulted from the party, but that he “is not going to release them yet.”

One of those approached was James A. Doolittle, perhaps the best-known ballet impresario in Los Angeles. Doolittle had sponsored Clifford’s first company a decade ago and offered to underwrite one week of the new company’s “Nutcracker” at the Universal Amphitheatre in December. However, he balked at plans for an 18-performance run, explaining that a new, unknown company could be at risk in this “Nutcracker”-saturated market.

“We’re not totally sure whether it’s the right place for dance,” Doolittle said. “I think 18 performances are too many in a 4,600-seat house. It might involve as much as a $2-million risk to present it.”

Alex Hodges, senior vice president of MCA concerts, said that the Amphitheatre is still holding Dec. 10-20 open for the L.A. Ballet “Nutcracker . “ At the 8,900-seat Anaheim Convention Center (another non-traditional space for ballet), the company is contracted for performances Dec. 6-10.

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In seeking a producer for the Universal dates, Clifford wrote a July 13 letter asking Doolittle “to cancel your plans to promote the Joffrey’s Nutcracker at the Music Center as a conflict of interest is readily apparent. Given the tenuous [financial] situation of the Joffrey Ballet at this time, canceling your participation should not be an impossibility.”

Doolittle declined the offer. “I think it was a little presumptuous,” he told The Times. “I just wouldn’t be part of that.”

But Clifford’s most controversial act to date is arguably the way he described dancers listed on his company roster in an advertisement published in The Times on May 30.

Identified as “former principal dancer, San Francisco Ballet,” Antonio Lopez did indeed dance major roles with that company from 1979 to 1984--though San Francisco Ballet didn’t rank its dancers during that period.

But was company member Svetlana Epifanova really a “former Prima Ballerina, Leningrad-Kirov Ballet”? “Never,” said Oleg Vinogradov, Kirov artistic director, in a recent interview. “She was in the company a little more than two years probably, but never even [ranked as] a soloist. Only corps de ballet.”

And what about Maria Mosina, identified in the ad as “former Prima Ballerina, Bolshoi Ballet”? Nina Morozova, an interpreter at the Bolshoi for 20 years, said Mosina “was never in the main company. She was a member of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy [the school] on the 1989 tour and in 1990 became a principal in the [Bolshoi-affiliated] youth company.” Another dancer identified as a “former Prima Ballerina, National Ballet of Cuba” was a second-ranked principal soloist in Havana, according to Salvador Fernandez, veteran technical director and designer for the company.

Clifford, who in recent years has been best known for staging ballets for the George Balanchine Trust, started his first company here in 1973 with a showcase program featuring himself and other principal dancers of New York City Ballet. Through 1984, Clifford served as artistic director, principal choreographer and often a lead dancer for the original Los Angeles Ballet. The company earned mixed reviews over its life but maintained a core following, even as its funding grew more precarious toward the end.

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Three years after L.A. Ballet folded, Clifford put together a new company to fulfill tour commitments of the defunct Chicago City Ballet. Named Ballet of Los Angeles, it visited Los Angeles only once in its three-year existence. In 1989, it served as the backup ensemble for four visiting Soviets. TV commercials for Northern California performances by this ensemble included clips of Bolshoi star Natalia Bessmertnova and other Bolshoi dancers not on the tour.

Locally, Clifford’s latest attempt has excited hopes, but also a wait-and-see response.

“I’m wondering why he could pick up all of this money and the Joffrey and ABT couldn’t,” said Stanley Holden, former principal dancer in the Royal Ballet and a prominent ballet teacher locally since 1970.

David Wilcox, artistic director of the 12-year-old Los Angeles Classical Ballet, said that Clifford is “known for his exuberance and promoting” and “he’s certainly pulled every trick out of the hat to promote this thing to the hilt. . . . He’s attempting to start off in his very first year with what it usually takes five to 10 years to accomplish. Something like this has never been done before.”