TV REVIEWS : A Bolshoi Version of ‘Nutcracker’

The Bolshoi Ballet “Nutcracker” is hardly unfamiliar to American TV audiences, but tonight A&E; cable presents the North American broadcast premiere of a beautifully shot and danced 1989 performance previously available in this country on Spectacor home video.

Scheduled for 6 and 10 p.m., this Yuri Grigorovich version should interest local balletomanes as the missing link between the Kirov “Nutcracker” (in the Southland this year for the first time) and the Baryshnikov staging seen annually on PBS.

Created in 1966, it reflects Kirov precedent by reshaping the story into a coming-of-age ritual and making little Clara (or Masha) a ballerina role.

It also anticipates Baryshnikov in linking these ideas to an expanded concept of Drosselmeyer.

Grigorovich also puts on pointe all the national dances in Act II and gives the same act a welcome dose of dramatic conflict by bringing back the evil mice for a final battle--to music normally used for a pantomime description of them.

The actual choreography remains mostly standard-issue, but the company invests it with elegance and verve.

Dancing the Nutcracker Prince, Irek Mukhamedov adds great warmth as well as technique projected at heroic scale. Natalia Arkhipova never seems remotely childlike as Clara but dances splendidly, especially in the intricate pointe-challenges of the pas de deux.