The company`s double bill presented two sure-fire winners and so with Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty on the menu it was not surprising to find Symphony Hall (amazingly turned into a theatre for the occasion) packed to the roof.

And certainly with quality dancing at every level plus firm conducting from Alesandr Kantorov, the 90-strong company drew a standing ovation.

The St. Petersburg`s Swan Lake where magic and reality intermingle so potently has been redeveloped since I last saw it. The relationship between the lovers is now probably one of the most poignant things in dance theatre today.


Yuri Gloukhikh`s Prince Siegfried was every inch the aristocratic cavalier yet at the same time giving us a young man desperate to save the enchanted girl.


The final moments of the last act with Gloukhikh agonizingly helpless as Odile`s wings were broken by the remorseless enchanter, Von Rothbart (Dymchik Saykeev) were remarkable for their sheer spine-tingling drama.


Irina Kolesnikova is already a legend but her Odette-Odile lifts her into the realms of the truly great. Frankly, I have seen no ballerina as technically brilliant as this since the days when Marion Tait was prima ballerina at Birmingham Royal Ballet.


Watch this dancer suggest the profound melancholy which must clothe Odile in the second act with its moonlit, Gothic ruin glittering with frost.


The lovers meet, they pledge their devotion and Kolesnikova supported perfectly by Gloukhikh rises slowly on pointe and then stands alone and you feel she will never come down again except for love of her prince. Not even the powerful drama of the ‘black act’ could complete, great though they were with the dazzling 38 spins for the ballerina.