Moving visions in a midsummer ‘Dream’

Call it “The Dream” Team: the slate of American Ballet Theatre stars chosen to perform Frederick Ashton’s Shakespearean classic for PBS cameras and a live audience at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Wednesday.

They all gave fine performances in a production that deserves to be documented, but only Ethan Stiefel turned out to be indispensable – indeed, phenomenal.

Created for Anthony Dowell, who co-staged Ballet Theatre’s production, the role of Oberon ideally requires traditional danseur noble majesty at warp speed, along with partnering prowess galore and the mysterious sense that the events of the ballet are all being conjured up in his imagination. Stiefel delivered brilliantly.

As Titania, Alessandra Ferri danced securely, with plenty of temperament heightening her technique. But her most indelible moments came in the delicious, detailed and disarmingly intimate mime interplay with the very funny Julio Bragado-Young as Bottom.

The remarkable elegance of Carlos Molina stood out among the squabbling young lovers: Marian Butler, Stella Abrera and Ethan Brown.

And, of course, the highflying, amazingly tireless Herman Cornejo scored a tremendous success as Puck.

However, “The Dream” arguably needed Cornejo far less than “Within You Without You,” a new, six-part Beatles ballet by four choreographers that had strongly benefited from his intensity the previous night.

“Within You Without You” without him offered little on Wednesday beyond hard-sell virtuosity, though Julie Kent and Joaquin De Luz did help make Natalie Weir’s “I Dig Love” something of a party game.

Moreover, Abrera and Isaac Stappas looked so hot together that Ann Reinking’s gymnastic duet to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” acquired the edgy glamour of those studiously sullen perfume ads.

In a casting and repertory switch, Paloma Herrera and Gennadi Saveliev danced the last-act pas de deux from “Don Quixote” with unerring professionalism but no real excitement until the final whirl-upon-whirl combinations in the coda. (The “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” had originally been scheduled, with other principals.)

Ormsby Wilkins again conducted “The Dream,” David LaMarche the “Don Quixote” excerpt.