THE RUSSIAN WAY KIROV BALLET KEEPS CLASSICAL FLAME BURNING AS IT SHOWS MODERN SIDE.

Byline: Vicki Smith Paluch Correspondent

Renown for its purity and commitment to the classics, the Kirov Ballet is showing the world that it is embracing 20th-century masterworks - including those by George Balanchine - in order to create its own works for the 21st century.

Under the directorship of Makhar Vaziev, the Kirov Ballet began acquiring the works of Balanchine, a former Georgian who was trained at the Imperial School of Ballet in St. Petersburg, which fed the Maryinsky Ballet, later known as the Kirov.

``My mission is to save the great traditions of our company - the great classical ballets - and to make our audience wider. It is important to have the works of Balanchine. He was the greatest choreographer from the 20th century. He was a genius,'' said Vaziev, who was appointed the company's director in 1994.

Balanchine, who co-founded the New York City Ballet and created the dance style known as neo-classical, came out of the Russian tradition of such choreographers as Marius Petipa and distilled the Russian ballet technique down to its purest essence. Balanchine was discovered by Sergei Diaghilev, whose Ballets Russes also produced the great works by Mikhail Fokine and Vaslav Nijinsky.

It only makes sense for the Kirov Ballet to show the spectrum of its grand ballet heritage. Both sides - the 19th- and 20th-century masterworks - will be featured beginning Wednesday on its tour in Southern California.

However, the two sides will be split between neighboring counties. Los Angeles will get the 19th century in the form of ``La Bayadere,'' at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood from Wednesday through Sunday. Orange County will get the 20th century with works by Fokine (``Chopiniana,'' ``Scheherazade,'' ``The Firebird'') and Balanchine's ``Jewels'' from Oct. 21-26 at Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

The Kirov Ballet, celebrating its heritage in the post-Soviet era, has also reverted to its original name: The Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg Kirov Ballet. When there was a Soviet Union, the company was known as the Kirov Ballet of Leningrad. Times change - and so do the names of cities and countries.

Ballet fans continue to simply call the company the Kirov. The company has produced some of the greatest dancers of its time, including famous 20th-century defectors Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova, all of whom shared their choreographic heritage with America.

Even though ``La Bayadere'' is one of the oldest ballets in the Russian repertoire, the 1877 work was not seen in the West until the early 1960s, when the Kirov brought ``Shadows'' to London and ``Bayaderka'' to New York. But even at that, they only brought the haunting fourth act (``The Kingdom of the Shades''), which was staged by Nureyev for the Royal Ballet of London in 1963. Makarova staged the first full-length ``La Bayadere'' in the West for American Ballet Theatre in the late 1970s, and Nureyev staged his version for the Paris Opera Ballet.

``La Bayadere,'' choreographed by Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus, is the sad love story of the warrior Solor and the temple dancer Nikia, who is poisoned by her rival, Princess Gamzatti. The ballet is a spectacular catalog of India: temples in the shade of palm trees, majestic palace walls, frenetic fakirs, sacred dances by lithesome dancers, elephants, tigers, cobras and opium. The Indian exoticism was re-created through conventional ballet techniques of the 19th century. That exoticism captured the Victorian era, which influenced Russian ballet greatly. It was sun-filled romanticism en pointe.

In Orange County, the Kirov will show how it performs the masterworks of Fokine, who left the Kirov at the peak of his powers as a dancer in 1909 because he wanted to create dances that spoke to the new 20th century. He became the father of ballet modernism. Nijinksy was his greatest interpreter, and Igor Stravinsky was his composer of choice.

His ``Chopiniana'' (better-known as ``Les Sylphides''), ``The Firebird'' (set to the music of Stravinsky) and ``Scheherazade'' show how the choreographer pushed and eventually broke through the envelope of Russian classicism.

``Chopiniana'' is set to waltzes, mazurkas and preludes by Frederic Chopin. It evokes the style of ``Giselle,'' but is more an expression of the soul of the music - not unlike the effect of Balanchine decades later.

``The Firebird'' was the career-making ballet of Stravinsky, whose haunting score tells the tale of this exotic creature with dances drawn from the Russian folk tradition - and that American modern dancer Isadora Duncan.

``Scheherazade'' is the dance story of the Arabian Nights set to the music of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. It is filled with the exoticism Petipa had begun to explore in ``La Bayadere.'' Fokine exploited what we now call ``dance theater,'' as he was just as concerned with scenic elements as steps. Then we come to Balanchine and his ``Jewels,'' the first full-length abstract ballet, which was reportedly inspired by a jewelry showcase at Van Cleef & Arpels in New York City. The ballet is divided into three sections: ``Rubies,'' ``Diamonds'' and ``Emeralds.'' Each section has its own music and national emotion. The American section, ``Rubies,'' is set to Stravinsky's Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, while the French ``Emeralds'' is set to music by Gabriel Faure. The Russian ``Diamonds'' is set to Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3.

Though the scheduling of performances does not allow a balance for local audiences, the tour illustrates how important it has become for the Kirov to keep a balance of classical and modern works.

``I am concerned about our young choreographers and how important it is to give them the opportunity to create,'' Vaziev said during a telephone interview from Las Vegas, where the Kirov was performing at the Aladdin. To create new work, a choreographer must know the past as well as the work of contemporary artists, he said.

But to carry on the great heritage of the Kirov, Vaziev said, the company must continue to dance the classics in their purest form. ``We are the home of (Agrippina) Vaganova - we cannot forget that,'' he said, referring to the great ballet teacher who codified the Russian technique.

KIROV BALLET

What: ``La Bayadere.''

Where: Kodak Theatre, 6801 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets: $25 to $100. [phone]; www.ticketmaster.com

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Photo:

(color) Igor Zelensky and Uliana Lopatkina of the Kirov Ballet dance in ``La Bayadere,'' the classical Russian ballet that tells a tragic love story of warrior Solor and temple dancer Nikia, who is poisoned by a rival.