‘Dracula’ in a New Vein

The undead no longer walk among us--they dance. Restlessly, endlessly, purposelessly they dance, in choreography without distinction to music without a pulse. Every hour or so they claim a new victim, which initiates an orgy of over-the-top pantomime and flamboyant stagecraft. Then it’s back to the dancing: a wan, dim, never-ceasing classical hell-on-earth set amid the bat-gargoyles and bat-tapestries and blood-red swag curtains the undead call home.

This is Ben Stevenson’s “Dracula,” a three-act ballet in imitation 19th century style that premiered in March and arrived at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Tuesday for a six-performance engagement. Performed devotedly by the Houston Ballet, it does not retell Bram Stoker’s vampire tale so much as set the bloodthirsty title character loose in a familiar landscape we can call Ballet Land.

Relentlessly flapping his enormous cape like some spotlight-hugging Rothbart, Stevenson’s Dracula interacts with his corps of 18 somnolent brides throughout Act 1 in the manner of Golfo and his naiads in “Napoli.” Later on, we get the happy folk-dancing peasants from “Coppelia,” bits of the mad scene from “Giselle” and the abduction from “Raymonda,” plus images borrowed from “La Sylphide” “La Fille mal Gardee” and sources dating back to the original ballet-from-the-crypt in “Robert le Diable.”

However, other than turning the Romantic repertory into a kind of theme park, Stevenson has nothing on his mind. He understands the obvious metaphoric link between vampire blood-lust and forbidden sexual desire, but stages the scenes of abduction and subjugation crudely as episodes of physical and magical harassment. No erotic menace from the Count, no unexpected vulnerability or sudden will to submit from his victims. Just a lot of fustian melodrama that continually depicts emotion but generates virtually none.

A major part of the problem: the fundamental disjunction between what you see and what you hear. Just as Stevenson’s narrative is a collage of scraps from older, better ballets, the accompaniment is stitched together from a pile of scores by Franz Liszt, a master of mood and drama but utterly lacking the rhythmic impetus needed to underpin the castle scenes here. Very early in Act 1, Dracula lifts and turns two of his brides in a formula classroom showpiece, while the music goes its own way and undergoes major changes without affecting the form or content of the choreography.

With Katherine Burkwall-Ciscon capably executing the solo piano passages and Ermanno Florio conducting a forceful performance by the Houston Ballet Orchestra, the patchwork-Liszt sounds just fine, but it supports neither the storytelling nor the big classical duets for the two threatened lovers, Svetlana and Frederick. It’s simply there, another 19th century artifact in a work that manages to be simultaneously excessive and insufficient.

Ultimately, Stevenson’s “Dracula” may interest the public primarily as a display of what a million dollars can buy in the dance marketplace of the 1990s: lavish sets by Thomas Boyd, intricately detailed costumes by Judanna Lynn, atmospheric lighting by Tim Hunter, flying mechanisms from the venerable house of Foy, all manner of special effects (smoke, explosions, portable tombs, a careening carriage), plus the services of a large, professional ensemble of dancers and musicians.

Certainly, the unfailing authority of Timothy O’Keefe as Dracula deserves respect, and the spectacular virtuosity of Carlos Acosta as Frederick something more. Svetlana may be just a lyrical cliche with a very ugly solo, but Barbara Bears gives the character spirit and as much musicality as possible under the circumstances. Susan Cummins goes for broke in the role of the alternately terrorized and demented Flora, while Parren Ballard proves even more wonderfully wacko as Renfield, the Dracula henchman who gets the energy for his bravura air-turns from eating bugs. As such, he’s easily the last word in camp grotesquerie from an extravaganza that, at worst, represents a fake antique and, at best, an overextended tribute to a lost dance epoch.

* With changes of cast, “Dracula” continues nightly at 8 through Saturday, with a final performance on Sunday afternoon at 2. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. Tickets: $15-$60. (213) 972-7211.