Edition: U.S. / Global

Ballet: 2 Bolshoi Stars

Published: February 15, 1988

HAVING passed through a baptism by fire last week, the New York City Ballet's two young guests from the Bolshoi Ballet came back for a second round Saturday afternoon. Mixed metaphors notwithstanding, the result was a triumph.

As Andris Liepa and Nina Ananiashvili will testify, practice makes perfect. Or if you prefer, opening-night nerves are reserved for opening night.

For the many who were drawn to the State Theater for a second look at the Bolshoi pair (this included scores of City Ballet dancers who lined the theater walls and vigorously applauded them at the end), it was obvious that Mr. Liepa and Miss Ananiashvili had adapted to a fallen style in record time.

The pas de deux in Balanchine's ''Raymonda Variations'' that had given them trouble on Wednesday, now went completely smoothly. Both dancers were relaxed, with Miss Ananiashvili steady in every balance as Mr. Liepa, in true Balanchine form, moved around her and executed the difficult partnering. Phrasing and musicality are everything in this kind of adagio work. Soviet cavaliers, like many European dancers, are accustomed merely to standing behind the ballerina and turning her in a pirouette or supporting her in an arabesque or lift.

Mr. Liepa and his ballerina now know that both partners are active participants in a Balanchine pas de deux, and their sense of timing was now acute. Mr. Liepa was always in the right place at the right time despite the distances involved in the choreography's repeated partings. What the dancers offered on their own was an emphasis on relationships. Miss Ananiashvili often looked over her shoulder to smile at her partner and he looked back. There was never a sense that they were just executing steps.

Here, they transmitted the essence of the Glazounov music that Balanchine excerpted from the three-act ''Raymonda.'' They emphasize what Balanchine always made clear himself: A pas de deux is a love metaphor for a man and a woman.

Just as each dancer in the City Ballet performs each role differently, so Miss Ananiashvili is closer to the City Ballet ballerinas who bring out the miracle side of the last solo. The male solo that precedes it was danced with nobility by Mr. Liepa in a version that resembled a more conventional classical solo than usual.

This choreographic version was obviously approved by Peter Martins, the company's co-director and the one who also reportedly coached the Bolshoi dancers personally for this second performance. The record must show how well both sides in this unprecedented cultural exchange have succeeded.