Ballet world’s tilting at windmills

Last seen locally in 1996, the undistinguished American Ballet Theatre version of “Don Quixote” reopens tonight for four performances at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, with only the casting justifying the company’s pretensions to an A-list international identity.

But stars or no stars, this ballet should offer more than a pretext for whatever bravura step-combinations the leads feel like inserting.

“Don Quixote” may be ballet’s oldest hodgepodge, but it has its own life, its own style and its own perspective on the glories of 19th century European theater dance.

“The Nutcracker” is widely considered the perfect first ballet, possibly because of all the children who populate its first act. But “Don Quixote” invariably provides a far more seductive introduction to the world of toe shoes, tutus and tights.

In its evolved, 21st century state, its balance between male and female virtuosity has become ideal, its sitcom story line about a penniless young barber and a tavern keeper’s daughter supports the dances straight through to the end (something no “Nutcracker” can claim), and its prevailing spirit makes the whole ballet world seem like one unending fiesta.

Indeed, “Don Quixote” can and should represent an inspired masquerade.

Here the greatest classical stars pretend to be proletarian Spaniards; here Viennese composer Ludwig (a.k.a. Leon) Minkus pretends he has Gypsy blood in his veins; and here the supreme architect of Imperial Russian style, choreographer Marius Petipa, unbuttons his collar, rolls up his sleeves and gets everyone dancing in the streets.

Petipa never went to India, so his national dances in “La Bayadere” (set in that country) are mostly curry-flavored kitsch. But he knew Spain -- and it shows. “Don Quixote” represents a textbook on how to balleticize the freedom and flair of Spanish dancing with as much love as technical sophistication guiding the process.

Of course, what Petipa couldn’t do was give “Don Quixote” more than superficial relevance to its source: the novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra that has become one of the classics of world literature.

Back in 1869, when Petipa choreographed the work, the conventions of Russian classicism made it impossible for an old geezer and his fat servant to dance leading roles. All they were allowed to do was mime.

So Petipa based his four-act comedy ballet on the same minor episode in the novel that Felix Mendelssohn had used for his early opera “Die Hochzeit des Camacho” (1827).

This episode also had served choreographers Louis Milon (Paris, 1801), August Bournonville (Copenhagen, 1837) and Bernardo Vestris (Milan, 1844). In it, Quixote’s quest provides, at most, a frame for the young lovers’ escapades.

But Petipa did give the character of Don Quixote one imperishable gift: He alone of all the men in the ballet gets a glimpse of classical heaven in the central dream scene.

In Romantic ballet, any male who interacts with sylphides, wilis or dead bayaderes almost always faces great peril -- but not Quixote. The corps of dryads that he envisions surges around him with no more dangerous intent than to offer a balm to his soul. And to ours.

Petipa revised “Don Quixote” in 1871, expanding it to five acts and adding more classicism. Alexander Gorsky took it in the opposite direction in 1900, emphasizing comic realism, and versions by Fyodor Lopukhov in 1923 and Rostislav Zakharov in 1940 continued this debate. St. Petersburg-style classical purity versus fiery Moscow character dancing: Take your pick.

The standard or traditional versions we see are therefore an amalgam. Unlike “The Sleeping Beauty” (nearly all Petipa these days, even if abridged) or “The Nutcracker” (almost wholly contemporary, even if adopting a Petipa look), it contains genuine 19th century passages along with more recent contributions.

The greatest production seen on any local stage arrived in 1996 at the Shrine Auditorium, staged by Yuri Grigorovich for the Bolshoi Ballet in honor of the work’s 125th anniversary. Not to be confused with a much inferior Bolshoi edition on view here four years later, it took a full three hours to survey all the dramatic and choreographic lore that the ballet had accumulated, preserving everything audiences always have loved.

In its original state, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s 1978 production for American Ballet Theatre attempted the same mission, with some success. But abridgement and tinkering weakened it long before it was replaced by a dubious staging in the same sets. And now, those sets (with some additions) grace another ABT “Don Quixote,” this one staged none too impressively by Kevin McKenzie and Susan Jones.

Happily, it won’t be the last word on the ballet in 2003. On Oct. 7-8 and 11-12, San Francisco Ballet dances a recent staging by Helgi Tomasson and Yuri Possokhov at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. And Nov. 14 and 15, National Ballet of Cuba introduces a “Don Quixote” credited to Alicia Alonso, Marta Garcia and Elena Llorente at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

So a ballet that began long ago with a Frenchman re-creating his memories of Spain for a Russian audience will help Southland audiences measure the difference between a Baryshnikov and a McKenzie, a Tomasson and an Alonso, in terms of what values they bring to an enduring patchwork that exists in a state of perpetual revision and seems always to grow at the same pace as the art of ballet itself.

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American Ballet Theatre

What: “Don Quixote”

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

When: Tonight, 8; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.

Price: $20 to $80

Contact: (714) 740-7878