The St Petersburg Ballet continues to leave a stream of shining memories on it’s current UK tour.

Last week in Crawley’s Hawth Theatre, their new production of Marius Petipa’s 19 century Imperial exotica was a dazzling experience even in the Hawth’s cramped facilities. Sets are designed for touring and the painted backcloths, supplanting the usual architectural scenery, give an authentic period feel to the high-flown romance of the medieval Himalayan setting, while the women’s bare midriffs and amethyst and pink harem pants complement the enthusiastically upward curling toes of the men’s shoes. Luckily the dancers outshine this glamorous eyeful.


La Bayadere is wholly and highly erotic – but in the best possible taste - and nearly three hours of wall to wall dancing detail the character’s varying sexual impulses. Irina Kolesnikova’s eponymous Bayadere displays a lot of flesh and mixes natural grandeur with heavy lidded innocence and the touch-me-not allure of Greta Garbo. No wonder Dymchik Saykeev’s celibate Brahmin teems with lust. Diana Medysheva is an exasperating Gamzatti, the Bayadere’s love rival, she looks exquisite but cannot deliver the steps, as with Dmitry Akulinin’s hero, Solor.

Pencil thin and oozing youthful charm, he clearly lost his battle with the tiny stage. But the company is quite irresistible in its honesty and caring and in the final strictly classical dance scene, Kolesnikova comes into her own as the murdered temple dancer’s ghost, adding a soulful radiance to her technical brilliance that just reeks of potential greatness.