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Forsythe's 'In the Middle', first set on a Paris Opera Ballet cast, may not be typical of his work today. Intended to decentre classical language, it is not hard to imagine what that first Paris cast might have made of its then new and unfamiliar grammar. With the years the shock of the new may have worn a bit thin. Last night's cast, led by Darcy Bussell, Roberto Bolle and Zenaida Yanowsky gave an account of the work that, if anything, was sassy and vivacious. Technically they were consummate, unscrambling the piece's DNA, essentially two long sequences of dance-code, in the balletic equivalent of aerial combat.

Duato's 'Remanso'
Photograph by Guillermo Mendo and courtesy of Compañía Nacional de Danza

Remanso, last given here three years ago, returned in a reworked version. Wednesday's cast was Jonathan Cope, Robert Bolle and (an unexpected bonus) Edward Watson. While simple and witty, Remanso is rich in ideas. As ever Watson was completely mesmeric. It is not a matter of technique alone, eye-catching as his is. His stage presence also manifests a personal stillness coupled with a degree of abstraction. While not arrogant, it suggests that his main concern is an argument with the substance of the dance rather than with its presentation. He does not smile in the irritating way that dancers sometimes do. He is almost self-effacing, but despite himself compels attention.

There was a very short curtain between Remanso and Forsythe's ludicrously titled The Vertiginious Thrill of Exactitude, leaving Watson with about 90 seconds for a costume change before re-emerging on the Opera House stage. In this 11-minute work Watson was cast, perhaps for the only time in his life, in a pas-de-deux with Alina Cojocaru. Danced to the final movement of Schubert's C major symphony, the work is Forsythe's 'homage' to classical dance; a piece of archaeology intended to retrieve a store of lost meanings and eccentricities. It is a homage that falls strangely and unpersuasively from Forsythe's lips - and in last night's performance felt rather lifeless.

Duato's Por Vos Muero ended the evening. It was a curiously layered piece performed to a soundscape of 16th century Spanish secular and sacred music, together with spoken fragments of verse culminating in the Por Vos Muero sonnet from the poet Garcilaso de la Vega. Intended as an evocation of the importance of dance to the society of the day, it fused contemporary dance idioms with quotations from Spanish folk dance as well as with gestures from period paintings and sculptures. Taken at its face value it was attractive if, perhaps, too long. It was oddly costumed. What jarred, in particular, were the thuribles-swinging acolytes clad in flesh-coloured shorts with burgundy capes. The women's costumes too were problematic, if anything, masking the full intent of the choreography.

Duato's 'Remanso'
Photograph by Guillermo Mendo and courtesy of Compañía Nacional de Danza

For last night's performance the Royal Ballet mustered eleven of its thirteen principals (two were missing due to injury). On all the evidence this is a company in superb technical shape. And Ross Stretton need make no apologies for the programme. While it contained perhaps one masterwork, it is also the case that London audiences need to know what is happening elsewhere in dance. A diet of the purest classicism is no prescription for the future.