A ‘Dream’ worth remembering

American Ballet Theatre so rarely performs anything in Southern California besides dreadful adaptations of 19th century war horses that it’s something of a miracle to see the company dance up to the level of a choreographic masterpiece.

Like the Hollywood cliche in which an ordinary woman takes off her glasses and, voila, is suddenly gorgeous, the company looked transformed and irresistible Tuesday in its first local performance of Frederick Ashton’s sublime “The Dream.”

Created in 1964 as part of the Royal Ballet’s contribution to the celebrations of William Shakespeare’s 400th birthday, the ballet used John Lanchbery’s deft arrangement of Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as not only its accompaniment but also as a touchstone of its neo-Romantic style. The choreographic intricacy, and especially the bravura demanded of the men, marked this one-act distillation of Shakespeare’s comedy as a prime 20th century treasure.

Local performances by the Royal Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet have made the work familiar enough, but the new Ballet Theatre staging by Anthony Dowell (the original Oberon) and Christopher Carr projected every detail with such meticulous care that it became easy to fall in love with it -- and this company -- all over again.

And with Julie Kent, in particular. Her long-limbed elegance and lyric refinement graced her performance as Titania, but a dimension of wit, sensuality, speed and even wildness made every scene a revelation. She has never been more stellar, more released into a thrilling imaginative dimension.

Joaquin De Luz brought spectacular velocity and technical control to his performance as Puck but sometimes flung his split-leaps in the audience’s teeth as if nobody would notice him otherwise. Not notice Joaquin De Luz? Ridiculous. The audience couldn’t get enough of him. As Oberon, Marcelo Gomes danced respectably, except for shaky execution in some of the role’s cruelly exposed turns into extension. And he partnered Kent in the glorious “Nocturne” duet with great suavity.

Isaac Stappas played Bottom with wide-eyed charm, and the mismatched lovers (Karin Ellis-Wentz, Michele Wiles, Eric Otto and Ricardo Torres) danced splendidly, though a little more period stodginess would have better realized the comic richness of their scenes.

The women corps dancers looked fine but clattered in the opening ensemble as if they were wildebeest instead of sylphides. Conducted by Ormsby Wilkins, the Pacific Symphony played diligently, and the Chapman University Women’s Ensemble lent their voices to the Mendelssohn/Shakespeare songs.

After intermission, the company reverted to its usual technique-peddling in a knockoff of the Joffrey’s “Billboards”: a soulless four-choreographer rock ballet titled “Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison.”

Stanton Welch toyed with lonely-in-a-crowd gambits to Harrison’s “Isn’t It a Pity?” and gave Angel Corella opportunities for fabulous muscular isolations and molten torso accents in “Something.”

Ann Reinking asked Jose Manuel Carreno and Sandra Brown to execute aggressive gymnastic ploys to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and they complied, expertly.

Natalie Weir tried turning a duet into a trio in “I Dig Love” and a solo into a duet in “Within You Without You,” enlisting Gillian Murphy, Marcelo Gomes and Herman Cornejo in a strenuous but mostly uneventful display.

For “My Sweet Lord,” David Parsons had the full cast whirl across the stage from left to right and then run behind the backdrop to reenter again. And again.

During emotional or spiritual lyrics, the dancers grimaced on cue, but the choreographies demonstrated so little involvement with Harrison’s worldview that the fake intensity backfired.

Completing the program: Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Belotserkovsky in George Balanchine’s “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” a 1960 neoclassical showpiece to long-lost music from “Swan Lake.” Dvorovenko looked mystified by the rapid changes of attack needed in the coda but otherwise danced brilliantly, while her husband and partner settled for proficiency.

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American Ballet Theatre

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

When: Mixed bill: Today, 8 p.m. “Don Quixote”: Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.

Price: $20 to $80

Contact: (714) 740-7878