Kirov ‘Chopiniana’ reviews Kirov ‘Scheherazade’ reviews Kirov ‘Firebird’ reviews Amasova in reviews Nioradze in reviews all Kirov reviews

Was Fokine prescient? The evidence of the Kirov's final programme in London is equivocal. The stage curtain was not the Royal Opera House's usual; it was replaced for the week by a special drape, entitled "Les Saisons Russes " with motifs from Scheherazade. Designed by Bakst for the original Diaghilev seasons in Paris, its use here was clearly intended to stamp the night with a extra patina of authenticity. But whereas Balanchine's works came to the Kirov vacuum-packed, the origins of this Fokine programme are more problematic.

Two of the ballets had been "restored" by Andris Liepa and Fokine's granddaughter Isabelle. I'm instinctively nervous when artists' grandchildren are mentioned, remembering the baleful influence of relatives and legacees of other artists. While I hesitate to judge the scholarship behind last night's restoration, there is enough reason to pause for thought.

In some respects the Kirov's Firebird was better realised than the Royal Ballet's version. The designs were more authentic, reverting to the originals of Golovin and Bakst in which the gates to the Kostchei's Magic Kingdom were placed in the middle of the stage. The Kirov's Danse Infernale was more spirited; the stage persona of the Kostchei more delineated. But Tatiana Amasova as the Firebird lacked the feral edginess of a Leanne Benjamin and her reading lacked nuance. There was not enough of the actress about her. Some of the lifts were suspect - too high and careless of the conceit that the Firebird is a flighty creature resisting capture. I missed the sullenness of the ultimate moment of subjugation. The climactic wedding lacked the solemn theatricality of the Royal Ballet's version. There is abundant evidence that the Royal Ballet's Firebird represents a scrupulous act of curatorship, and there is a near consensus that its choreography is very close to the original. Grigoriev and Tchernicheva, who staged it, were supremely placed to know Fokine's intentions. So were Karsavina the first Firebird, who taught the role to the RB, and Ernest Ansermet, who conducted the first RB performances, who had been the Ballet Russe's Music Director. I find myself a little surprised that the Kirov did not look to the preservers of this dimension of their heritage, as they did to Balanchine who so transformed other aspects of their heritage into a language for the years ahead.

While Scheherazade was great fun, it is hard to accept it as more than balletic kitsch. Diaghilev had turned his back on this ballet, partly because he had recoiled from its folklorism, but also because he believed it to be very much of a particular time, and associated with its original performers. As a result, there was been a discontinuity in the transmission of the ballet and last night's version was a reconstruction. Whatever Fokine intended when he wrote it, it has not weathered well. What once passed for exoticism now appears as low-rent cabaret. That said, last night's cast, Nioradze as Zobeide and Tsiskaridze as the Golden Slave milked it for every scintilla of campy excess. The audience loved it and the Kirov Orchestra's rendering of Rimsky-Korsakov's score was luxuriant, an absolute pleasure - as indeed was its reading of Firebird.

And so to Chopiniana. Here too there are issues of preservation, as over the years Fokine produced different variants of the ballet. In this case, we can rely on the Kirov's collective memory as the defining version of Chopiniana was made for the Maryinsky Theatre in 1908 and has been in its repertory ever since. It was Fokine's deeply felt homage to romanticism and it was exquisitely distilled by a cast, which brought not merely technical perfection, but layer and layer of insight. While there is a relationship between artistic and religious experience, every now and again the boundary blurs and an artistic moment precipitates something akin to a mystic state. So it was last night. It was a superb cast - Ayupova, Selina, Pavlenko and Kolb as the Poet.

For me the closing frieze of Chopiniana will be the lingering after-image of the Kirov’s London season. May they return soon.