© John Ross 'Serenade' reviews Kirov 'Rite of Spring' reviews all 'Rite of Spring' reviews 'Etudes' reviews Makhalina in reviews Zakharova in reviews recent Kirov reviews more Lynette Halewood reviews

There’s lots of different ways of approaching this work, which has obviously been put together with real love and care. You could get nit picking about individual details and worry about whether this particular passage or the other is recognisable from the fragments of evidence available. But on a basic level – does what’s on stage work ? Does it look real rather than a pious work of exhumation ? Is this celebrated work actually any good ?

I’d say it has some great moments, without necessarily coming together and convincing as a whole. The Kirov have certainly given this much more of their effort and concentration than they appeared to have done for Les Noces, a much more committed and gutsy performance, much less balletic and more rooted to the earth. Some of the fiendish counts still seemed to get the better of one or two of the men in the first part but nevertheless their stomping seemed powerfully felt.

There were moments that did anchor themselves in the mind; the circle of girls dancing as the Chosen One was selected: Julia Makhalina standing still and staring for minutes while the crowd circled her: and parts of her final solo. I was rather disappointed by the rather careful way she lay down at the end – I thought she should drop like a butchered animal rather than suddenly turn decorous. The swirl of the gorgeous costumes in motion would every now and them seem to snap into shape and you thought, yes, maybe this is it ,and then it eluded you again. It may be a ghost of the real work rather than the thing itself but it can still raise a sudden shiver.

This is a recent acquisition by the Kirov, and the reconstruction hasn’t been seen live before in the UK (I recall that the Joffrey performance of this when it was originally recreated in 1987 has appeared on TV here some time back). Hodson’s other reconstructions of Nijinsky (Jeux and L'apres midi d’un faune) were done here by the Royal Ballet in 2001. I didn’t think I liked Jeux much at the time, but it has obstinately stuck in my memory, with its very particular, peculiar atmosphere, but then I was able to see it more than once. Rite deserves more than these few isolated performances to get to grips with. I’m not sure whether by the end of the year it will be forgotten or still niggling away in a corner of my memory.

One plus point was the music which came across very strongly (conductor Mikhail Agrest). The powerful stamping noises seemed absolutely right with it. The audience adored it: very many curtain calls.

They had been considerably cooler about the performance of Balanchine’s Serenade which opened the bill. I’m always pleased to see this again, regardless of the company dancing it. Even if the company aren’t completely at home in the style, the choreography is always a pleasure, so beautifully structured. It unfolds with remorseless logic and yet remains mysterious. The women included Natalia Sologub and Irina Golub. There was clean, unforced, unshowy dancing from both the men in this, Korsuntsev and Baranov. Baranov’s name isn’t even in the list of dancers in the programme, but I recall him from earlier visits of the Kirov with pleasure (for example in the first act of Fountain of Bachisarai) – but he never seems to have been much in evidence here since, which is a pity.

The final item on the programme was another recent acquisition, Harold Lander’s Etudes. It’s well known here as a showpiece, or workhorse, depending on your view, for English National Ballet, who have clocked up hundreds of performances of it. Considered purely as choreography, there’s no great invention or originality about it, but as a crowd pleasing closing item which gives ample opportunities for its principals to show off their best pirouettes, it usually goes down a treat. Zakharova in the lead battered the audience into submission with her technical facility, whipping through her turns and threatening to bore a hole in the stage. I didn’t feel charmed by her as the romantic ballerina, which was a little contrived for my taste. Fadeyev and Sarafanov produced the requisite fabulous jumps and turns. A section with six girls all trying to do fouttees in sync fared less well, as they travelled rather badly. But somehow it never quite looked like marvellous fun, too much like another day at the office. The company perhaps are asked to work too hard on this fairly gruelling schedule to truly enjoy their dancing.