through the good graces of Dudamel, who is the new music director of Paris Opera and who takes its dance company seriously. Sunday will be Bollywood night at the Bowl. Phil program devoted to contemporary Latin classical pieces along with an appearance by Ricky Martin led by Dudamel. This program, repeated Thursday, is followed Friday and Saturday by an an L.A. That is as long as it doesn’t get too precious, too self-conscious, too exclusive. When brought into a sharing space like the Bowl, it’s a rare and blessed thing to preserve. Moreover, the program, a mixed bill of short dances, offered without apology contentment instead of strife, amorous sensuality and irresistible virtuosity.

It further felt on this temperately fine evening like an advertisement for an idealized L.A. The Parisians do have their fashion quirks - which made room for so-called baggy ethno yoga pants open in front or rigid, lime-green, open-back tutus. The Bowl shell illumined in a compelling midnight blue during a sunset for the evening’s opening dance was a sight to behold.

The lighting made everything look wondrous.

The same goes for the elegant soloists: pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and L.A. No phrase of the exquisite 18 th and 19 th century, mostly French music was anything but elegant in the performances by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. No step by the mostly French dancers lacked elegance. And Wednesday night, Parisian balletic beauty overawed the Hollywood Bowl, where the company made its first appearance in Southern California since 2001. Its home is in one of the world’s most beautiful opera houses in arguably the world’s most beautiful capital city. The company is, for France, a national treasure. The history of ballet would not be what it is without it. The Paris Opera Ballet remains, as it has been for more than three centuries, one of the world’s most important ballet companies.

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