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Last Tuesday the Royal Ballet nearly got it right. The RB’s current corps de ballet is simply superb. The backbone of any classical ballet company, the ensemble dancers look young and committed, competitive and disciplined and appear not only to be enjoying every minute but also aware of what they are about.

The Prologue, though, celebrating the Royal baby Aurora’s birth revealed the company’s weak vein. The corps fill the stage as non dancing courtiers as the good fairies bless the newborn infant with physical and spiritual gifts. Laura Morera was the only principal dancer on stage and has a fine line in attack and engaging the audience. But she reduces her steps to miniscule. While her face and arms are generous and expressive her legs and feet hardly seem to move. A disconcerting dichotomy. As for the other four fairy soloists, Caroline Duprot’s Song Bird at least looked as though she meant it while the steps were simply beyond Lauren Cuthbertson’s Lilac Fairy. The spiteful fairy Carabosse who spoils the fun and condemns Aurora before she’s out of the cradle, was the svelte Genesia Rosato, slightly unsure and viciously beautiful like a Belgravia hostess losing grip of her party.

But it all fell into perfect artistic perspective in Act I, Aurora’s 16th birthday. Christopher Wheeldon’s opening Garland Dance for the ensemble, to one of Tchaikovsky’s most ubiquitous waltzes, is youthful and elegant as well as choreographically eventful and satisfyingly musical. Then Roberta Marquez topped the lot as Aurora, the rising sun around whom the entire production revolves. Marquez is notoriously unpredictable, occasionally failing to deliver the goods when most required but on Tuesday night she was unreservedly breathtaking. In the infamous Rose Adage, notorious as the ballerina’s graveyard with its stamina sapping balances, Marquez was flawless and thrilling. Her following variation, a string of the simplest steps with no way of getting away with it except faultlessness, was stunning. Marquez had thrown down the gauntlet for the rest of the evening, with the only way forward, apparently, pointing downhill.

In Act II Aurora appears as an apparition to a passing and loveless Prince (Thiago Soares) promising the romance missing in his life and hoping for the kiss to kick start hers following a century’s slumber.

Brazilian born Soares is an intense young man whose Prince appeared on the brink of declaring war as he invited one of his hunting party to dance. But he and Marquez seem made for each other, in his embrace her upturned face fits neatly and naturally under his chin. Marquez performed another core variation in this scene with a care, precision and musicality that lifts her into the top league.

In the final fairy tale wedding celebrations Laura Morera repeated her top heavy performance in the Bluebird pas de deux while unforgivingly missing out steps to suit her own musical timing. Her partner, Yohei Sasaki, was strangely earth bound. We also saw the RB’s same overall performance formula, an animated and stylish corps de ballet with mediocre solos by Cats, Wolves and Red Riding Hood. And a confidant and, who could blame her, triumphant Marquez partnered by Soares in the final grand pas de deux. Technically she was strong and fearless but more importantly she has an unforced ability to connect both with audience and leading man. The killing combination in the midst of a coolly classical setting of physical brilliance, profound musicality and looking like a real woman in love marks Marquez as a singular artist. A Petipa ballerina in the truest meaning of the word.