Russian Star Ruzimatov’s Range Ends in an Artistic High

Their mid-30s are inevitably a rocky time for stellar male virtuosos of the ballet world, a period when hard-won prominence becomes undercut by waning technical resources and frequent injury. Some luminaries plunge into permanent Nureyev-style denial, some develop surprising artistic resources a la Baryshnikov. Some even find ballets that let them deal with the crisis publicly, as 36-year-old Farukh Ruzimatov did Thursday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Near the end of a scattershot “Stars of the Russian Ballet” program of solos and duets, the Kirov Ballet firebrand performed Argentine choreographer Oscar Araiz’s elegiac “Adagietto” (to Mahler) with the towering totality of belief that has always put his dancing in a class by itself. Moreover, through the dynamic extremes and shifting moods of the solo--the contrasts between fluid classicism and stiff mechanical moves, high anguish and deep contemplation--he traced a path from torment to acceptance. The final image showed him standing on a chair in a dying pool of golden light and letting something intangible, invisible but essential to him fly away, free and high into the distance.

By simply watching that flight and sinking into that chair, he achieved a dimension of artistry that eclipsed all the heavy-breathing hokum earlier in the evening, when he impersonated two exotic slaves in thrall to glamorous Kirov partners. Opposite the fabulously willful Yulia Makhalina in the adagio from Fokine’s “Scheherazade” and the awesomely refined Diana Vishneva in Petipa’s “Corsaire” pas de deux, he proved superbly intense but not always in ideal control of his technical arsenal--indeed, more than once improvising his way out of treacherous lapses.

Ruzimatov performed shirtless throughout the program but Makhalina nearly matched him in exposure with her bikini top over harem pants in “Scheherazade” and her gown of sheer black gauze over a white thong in “Mephisto Tango,” a flamboyant solo by Igor Miroshnichenko that showed her brilliantly contorting and shimmying her way to perdition under spotlights, red lights and strobes.

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Lesser dancers and more conventional rep filled out the program, framed by an opening tableau and a recap finale that pretended that an ill-assorted jumble of dancers constituted a genuine company. Besides patching together that finale from everyone’s flashiest steps, Maly Opera and Ballet Theatre soloist Yuri Petukhov choreographed an “Adagietto” of his own (to Rachmaninoff) and danced three duets with his versatile, commanding Maly colleague Elvira Khabibullina. First came Nikolai Boyarchikov’s crude adaptation of the classic Ivanov “Nutcracker” adagio, then a Boyarchikov “Faust” showpiece (music by Sandor Kallos) marked by inventive partnering ploys and, last, an arrangement of passages from “Giselle” disfigured by bizarre technical interpolations.

Freelancer Aidar Akhmetov’s aerial prowess generated a tremendous stir in the “Don Quixote” pas de deux, though he made no impression whatsoever in the hard-sell gymnastics of Vasili Vainonen’s “Moszkowsky Waltz.” In contrast, his Stanislavsky Ballet partner, Lilia Mussavarova, looked uneven and often underweight in the former duet, but memorably fleet and light in the latter.

Margarita Kulik’s steely authority and Vladimir Kim’s partnering prowess served them better in Petukhov’s feverish “Adagietto” than Victor Gsovsky’s “Grand Pas Classique,” which required a majestic ease that neither Kirov dancer commanded. (Where is Vishneva when we really need her?)

Similarly, the Maly’s Anastasia Lomachenkova and Roman Mikhalev lacked the drop-dead precision for Petipa’s “Harliquinade” but ably introduced the night’s classical rarity: Petipa’s “Calvary’s Halt,” a peasant-style duet from 1896 full of exciting intricacies but with no real culmination.

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* Farukh Ruzimatov and “Stars of the Russian Ballet” dance a nearly identical program tonight at 8 and Sunday at 2 p.m., Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. $42-$57. (562) 916-8500.