BALLET REVIEW : A Modest Muscovite ‘Nutcracker’ : The Christmas ballet season continues in Cerritos with an odd import from a minor Russian company.

I know, I know. On Donner, on Blitzen. A partridge in a pear tree and a nutcracker under every bush. ‘Tis the season.

But it hasn’t been a very good season for “Nutcrackers.” A lavish but ungainly new production mustered by American Ballet Theatre has just moved from Orange County to the Music Center. Several dauntless local companies are doing their annual hippety-hop thing, bravely if not invariably wisely.

Meanwhile, the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts has entered into the Tchaikovsky kiddie-show sweepstakes with an unfamiliar version of the ever-gooey favorite from Moscow. The press release heralds it as “the only authentic Russian ‘Nutcracker’ being offered.”

Russian? Yes.

Authentic? Well. . . .

This is hardly a “Nutcracker” from the Bolshoi. This is a bargain-basement “Nutcracker” assembled, under obviously trying conditions, by a scrappy and scruffy little company that tours as the Moscow Classical Ballet. Southern California remembers the troupe, without overwhelming nostalgia, from a rather wobbly visit in 1988.

You can’t tell much about the latest “Nutcracker” from the program credits. Although no choreographer is listed, a spokeswoman informs us that the creators in question are the resident artistic directors: Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasiliov.

An assistant-choreographer is listed: Vassily Vainonen. But he died in 1964. Perhaps something got lost here in translation.

Vainonen, it should be recalled, staged an epochal Soviet “Nutcracker” back in 1934. Rudolf Nureyev borrowed his princely variation, and Mikhail Baryshnikov appropriated his Dance of the Snowflakes.

*

Poor Vainonen isn’t very well served here, apart from a strikingly geometric Waltz of the Flowers. Kasatkina and Vasiliov have camouflaged what remains of his contributions with all manner of fussy busywork. It keeps the dancers moving--no doubt about that--but it blurs the essential choreographic design while it blunts the basic narrative.

Everyone toils long and hard. Everyone dances, dances, dances--in a proud and feverish approximation of the grand, flamboyant Russian manner.

Everyone looks doggedly, blankly graceful--even when a little mime or a little character definition would mean more. The returns diminish constantly.

This, alas, is a “Nutcracker” without magic. The sets, attributed to Lev Solodovnikov, consist of a few quaint storybook flats. The costumes, designed by Elizaveta Dvorkina, deal in chintzy evasions. No attempt is made to establish a visual distinction between the little heroine’s real world and her world of fantasies.

There isn’t even a growing Christmas tree. The pathetic thing just rests in painted peace on the backdrop. Humbug. A “Nutcracker” without expanding greenery is like a pizza without cheese.

Even worse, perhaps, there isn’t an orchestra. Most of the uncredited music comes courtesy of an old Rozhdestvensky recording. It is a good symphonic performance, but it straitjackets the dancers, forcing them to adhere to predetermined tempos and stresses.

In ballet, the orchestra is supposed to accompany the action. Here the action accompanies the orchestra. Forget about spontaneity. The effect is as mechanical as the sound is sterile. And we won’t dwell on the tape glitches that twice nearly brought the proceedings to a halt.

*

The Moscow Ballet has not performed “The Nutcracker” before. There is no sacred tradition here. This production was assembled for the American tour, which began this month in Texas amid borrowed sets (Solodovnikov’s decors arrived last week in Arkansas).

The young dancers of the company are obviously earnest, endearingly eager, technically more than competent. They are sorely taxed, however, by a challenge that ideally requires strength in depth, personality projection, caractere maturity and classical finesse.

On Tuesday, the central duties of Masha (a.k.a. Marie, a.k.a. Clara) were dispatched with fleet assurance and a nice approximation of wide-eyed innocence by Ludmila Valiyeva. In this version, incidentally, there is no Sugarplum fairy, so Masha gets to execute the grand pas de deux (sorry, Clara, no fish dives).

Ivan Korneyev served as her ardent, long-legged, high-flying partner--more prince than nutcracker. Oleg Gorbuliov was no doubt following orders when he reduced the mysterious Dr. Drosselmeyer to just another boring danseur noble in a George Washington wig.

Among the secondary participants, Sergei Domrachev pranced peskily as l’il brother Fritz, and Vera Timashova looked sweet as a presumably evil Mouse (Fledermaus?) Queen. The assorted dolls and national-divertissement soloists functioned with zealous efficiency.

Had all gone as originally planned, incidentally, this “Nutcracker” would have been performed by the Maly Kirov Ballet of St. Petersburg--that is, the little Kirov. It is hard to guess if that would have made a difference.