Irina Kolesnikova is exquisite... She is a dancer of magnetic power - so much so that any ballet company in the world would welcome her with open arms.

For a start she moves her long lengths beautifully, and there is something extraordinary in the way that she comprehends the fullness of every movement and the perfection of every detail required, from the most obvious to the subtlest, to make and sustain the imagery. But there is more to the role of Odette/Odile than abstracted movement, and Kolesnikova’s Odette is not only proud but also heartbreakingly tragic. The way she lifts her arms from deep within her back suggests the generous span of a swan’s wing. It is an affirmation of Odette’s nobility.

But her eyes are downcast for much of Act 2, as she tells us about pain and vulnerability, and she does it with broken wings, and with hands that flex and break the line of the extended arm. In this way her hand comes to seem like a symbol of a suffering heart. This suffering is not personalised but, rather, comes across as compassion, as a feeling that she is speaking on behalf of all creatures in this fantasy world of swans and humans. It is intensely moving.

Kolesnikova’s Odile is, by contrast, in control of the destiny of malevolence. She is in league with Dimchik Saikeev’s scheming Rothbart, and she becomes a seductress, with eyes only for Prince Siegfied. In the flourish of her arms and the extension of her arabesques there is razor-sharp determination. She whips round in the virtuoso fouettes, tossing in doubles with incredible speed as if to challenge Siegfried to forget all else.

Long before the end of the Black Swan pas de deux, we know that she has triumphed, and that she will announce victory with a toss of her head that expresses pride in causing Siegfried to break his vow of eternal love to Odette...