WHEN the Paris Opera Ballet invited Heinz Spoerli to do a new version of La Fille Mal Gardee, the Swiss choreographer was delighted. Then he panicked.
''I asked myself: how can I make this ballet more French? If I hadn't been so young and naive, I probably wouldn't have dared to take on the challenge.'' As Spoerli well knew, the irony about the classical favourite was that although its creator was a Frenchman, the version that had reigned supreme for 20 years was Sir Frederick Ashton's decidedly un-Gallic Fille.
''It was all very English - the setting, the humour - yet the original by Jean Dauberval had opened on the eve of the French Revolution and made history by being the first French ballet about farm folk, not members of royalty or the aristocracy.
''I put it back into the revolution complete with soldiers on stage for the opening and went to the Paris Opera's library for folk tunes from the period.
''Ashton also used them, but got [British composer] John Lanchbery to arrange the music. There is certainly no jig in my version.'' Thirteen years after it triumphed in Paris, Spoerli's La Fille Mal Gardee (The Unchaperoned Daughter) is poised to conquer again - this time at the Sha Tin Town Hall where it will make its local debut on Friday.
The Hong Kong Ballet production, commissioned by the Regional Council, is the dance highlight of the New Territories' 1994 International Children's Arts Festival and with a $1.5 million budget, there has been no stinting.
Providing live accompaniment at the opening performance will be the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, sets and costumes are by New York's Christina Giannini, while Spoerli himself, with the assistance of repetiteur Chris Jensen, has been overseeing this Fille.