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But scheduling it so often is not simply a commercial consideration. The Royal has dancers at the peak of their form who need to measure themselves against this great test. The opening night went to Rojo and Acosta. In addition I saw the pairing of Zenaida Yanowsky and Roberto Bolle. Rojo has had a much longer history of performing the dual role of Odette / Odile, and has appeared in this with Acosta before. Yanowsky has had much less experience in the lead, appearing previously at Covent Garden with Jonathan Cope. She also performed the Swan Lake pas de deux with Bolle from the ballroom of Buckingham Palace as part of the televised jubilee celebrations a couple of years ago. This year does have the feel of a potential breakthrough season for her. After a very carefully thought out and intelligently danced Sylvia recently, it was going to be interesting to see how she approached Swan Lake.

Rojo’s Odette and Odile are both cool creatures, but in completely different ways. Her Odette is wary, despairing, a frozen creature slow to melt into Acosta’s arms. Odiles are often sensual, seductive creatures but not Rojo. Her Odile is not alluring or coquettish: she is cold, calculating, predatory, with the magnetism of a snake. Siegfried never stood a chance. She played with him, like a cat with a mouse, but the outcome was never in doubt. For both Rojo and Acosta, their formidable technical armoury is not indulged in for its own sake, but put at the service of the work. Acosta’s huge jumps are not just there for show, they manage to illustrate the heights of his excitement and the dizzying enchantment of his attraction for Odile. Rojo’s dazzling fouetees are the invocation of a spell, a tool to an end. When he finally swore his love to her she threw back her head and uttered a half laugh, half sob of triumph. It’s an interesting take on the role, the kind of approach that still keeps this fresh for habitual Swan Lake attenders, as well as leaving the first timers stunned.

The two women manage to convey the swan element in quite different ways. Yanowsky’s Odette is a warmer creature than Rojo’s, but still palpably a wild animal in her initial terror at Siegfried’s approach. In the white pas de deux in Act 2, when Rojo is lifted by Acosta it doesn’t so much appear that she jumps but is about to fly away: he pulls her back to earth. Yanowsky’s Odette has a stillness and grandeur to her, with particularly luscious backbends. A pity that Bolle is not a particularly responsive partner. He is as handsome a prince as you could want, but he does not hold the eye with the same presence that Acosta does. In Act 1, even when Acosta is not dancing, just sitting at the side of the stage, you are always aware of him, and of his proper place in the scheme of things.
 

Yanowsky’s Odile was glamorous, sophisticated and confident, aware of just how to manipulate her prince. There were one or two little technical glitches here, but it didn’t mar the overall mood.

Casting is generous throughout. In the first cast, for example, the prince’s friends in Act 1 and 2 include Martin Harvey and Thiago Soares. The pas de trois in the first cast was performed by Morera, Nunez and Sasaki (the last on very good form indeed). Martin Harvey had a much less happy time in this in the Yanowsky cast. Cervera and Hatley performed the neapolitan with verve on the 22nd, despite the distractions of escaping ribbons, and Salerno and Martin also made a good impression in this. The corps of swans were on excellent form throughout.

The sheer excellence of the Rojo and Acosta performance though, throws some shadows over the production itself. Their purity and grace made the Act 1 and 3 surroundings in particular, look tinny and trashy. The Yolanda Sonnabend designs with their strings of flashy baubles recalled recently discarded Christmas tree decorations. You can see the wire sets quiver and shake as the courtiers take their seats on them – not the surroundings that a dignified Princess such as Elizabeth McGorian, would inhabit, surely? The lakeside scenes are much better, but the rest are overdressed and over fussy. The next Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet will have many pressing issues in their in tray in a couple of year’s time: how to replace these designs to something more attuned to the score and the choreography might be one of them (and that’s before we get to Sleeping Beauty…).