Royal Ballet.

Just about everyone - President Clinton and National Endowment for the Arts chairman Jane Alexander included - mentioned the scenery first, and that priority was the obvious thing wrong with Anthony Dowell's new production of The Sleeping Beauty. Never should the dancing be second! A trained eye was needed to see the steps clearly amid the fancy decor and costumes, and it was reportedly ballet student Chelsea Clinton who kept reminding her father of what should have been the focus. The event, though, the first major premiere away from home by the British troupe, was gala. Princess Margaret attended, as did the diplomatic corps and many prominent Americans.

Dowell and his designer, Maria Bjomson, started with the good idea of displaying the fantasy in this classic and went too far. The set's drastically angled perspectives of baroque architecture generate excitement but also constant tension with the regular shapes of Petipa's choreographic groupings. The elaborate costumes' fussy silhouettes and ornate patches of color tend to Gamouflage the placement of bodies. Worst is the disguised staircase down which Aurora has to pick her way in Act 1, spoiling ballet's greatest entrance.

The ballet's other famous passages of choreography and mime are intact, Dowell having kept much of what is believed to be Petipa. A few fairly familiar pas are not Petipa's (Lopokov's Lilac Fairy variation, MacMillan's Garland Dance, and Ashton's solos for the two principals in Act II and for Sapphire in Act III, plus a Dowell - Ashton entrance and coda for the Precious Gems and Metals quartet). That this version moves quickly (but not as briskly as Peter Martins's for New York City Ballet) is due to tempi and the deletion of ceremonial parading, preparations, and pauses. But wouldn't a few more flourishes and a quiet moment here and there have enhanced the ballet's pomp and circumstance without adding significantly to the over-three-hour running time?

Insofar as Sleeping Beauty is an exercise in classical style, this version might be classified as "evolved English." The dancing seemed faster than of yore, yet was still gracious within a definitely bounded space. Dowell's Royal Ballet doesn't yet look anonymously international despite its dancers and teachers (including the vivacious Violette Verdy) from other schools. As a group, the women appear to move more lightly than on the last visit; the men are less exciting. Four ballerinas were cast as Aurora, and the alphabet may have determined their order: Darcey Bussell, Lesley Collier, Viviana Durante, and Sylvie Guillem. Bussell, on opening night, was uneven, often straining not to move on too big a scale. She was outdanced by Zoltin Solymosi, with his imperious, very Russian manner as the Prince. Bussell's wonderful expansiveness, if given freer rein, might have suited the role of the Lilac Fairy more than did Fiona Chadwick's neatness or the yet humbler qualities of her alternates, Genesia Rosato and Nicola Tranah. Collier as Aurora and Irek Mukhamedov as the Prince looked mature, and opted for warmth and musicality rather than brilliance.

Spacing had improved by the second week so that the costumes were less distracting, the action more focused, and, due to adjusted lighting or makeup, the men's faces less like masks. Durante's exquisitely refined, impeccably restrained Aurora was well matched with Bruce Sansom's elegantly understated Prince. Guillem's imperious Aurora emphasized technique. With extensions as promiscuous as the Eiffel Tower, she could be impressive or - when the hip appeared to retract into the torso and the raised leg's attachment to the body seemed unnatural - grotesque. Guillem's Prince, Jonathan Cope, looked imposing but he underdanced the part. Dowell must have been responsible for the fact that none of the ballerinas really showed dawn becoming daylight, a bud opening into a blossom - that is, Aurora attaining womanhood. Without this, Sleeping Beauty can provide sumptuous spectacle, exhilarating technical displays, and stylistic perfection and yet lack a humanistic dimension.

The Royal's ability to convey character spanned the generations from senior principals such as Derek Rencher through soloists like Peter Abegglen to newer dancers like Matthew Hart. Their range included MacMillan's morbid Mayerling (which Britain's young royals must have seen too often), and Ashton's poetic The Dream and his whimsical Tales of Beatrix Potter (in Dowell's stylistically true, overly long translation for the stage from the filmed original). Among the Royal's women with ballerina potential were Muriel Valtat, Jane Burn, Gillian Revie, and Sarah Wildor. Adam Cooper and Jose Manuel Carreno looked like danseurs nobles, but it was the demi-caractire Errol Pickford and Tetsuya Kumakawa who displayed the requisite technique.