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Having recently seen the Paris Opera Ballet version of Petrushka, a fascinatingly colourful affair, Sergei Vikharev's recent reconstruction came as a surprise to me. Why were the order of the music, part of the designs, and a great deal of the choreography so significantly different? This essential Ballets Russes work first came to the Bolshoi in 1921, 10 years after his premiere in Paris, but although the sets could be recreated, Vikharev explained to the Moscow Times that the choreography for this version was lost - what we saw last well was a reconstruction of the 1920 Mariinsky version, with the choreography, notated not too long after, “mostly that of Fokine”, according to Raymond Stults

Complicated though its history may be in this particular case, Petrushka remains an early 20th-century masterpiece, with Stravinsky’s powerful score an undisputed highlight. Set in a traditional fair in St. Petersburg, it conjures up images and legends both entertaining and enigmatic, from the bear brought in to entertain the crowd to the Charlatan who locks up his puppets in very singular rooms. At once lively and dark, its theatricality and deep Russian roots clearly open the door to a reflection on Russian identity as it is projected in ballet.

Vikharev’s reconstruction, however, has its limits - the colours used by Benois in 1921 may be more subdued than in the original version, but more importantly, the choreography doesn’t quite have the same impact. Much of the fair divertissement is transferred to the last scene, delaying the resolution; the choreography for Petrushka is much more virtuosic, with crowd-pleasing jumps and turns thrown in. Mikhail Lobukhin certainly performed them well on opening night, but those moments, as well as a number of awkward transitions between steps, force the dancers to go slightly out of character. Nina Kaptsova was appropriately ingenuous as the Ballerina, and Denis Savin entertaining even without the Moor’s traditional black make-up, but something seemed amiss in this well-crafted production - the rag-doll pathos that is the melancholy centre of this disturbing and essentially theatrical world, perhaps, or simply a more thorough exploration of the tale’s grotesque undercurrents.

Russian Seasons may have been choreographed in 2006 for the New York City Ballet, but Moscow was probably still in a corner of Ratmansky’s mind at the time. The ballet came to the Bolshoi barely two years later, almost as an early farewell as he was nearing the end of his directorship, and it is a true gift for ''his'' dancers, almost a Russian Dances at a Gathering – the enactment of a community on stage, with individual dancers embodying complex musical emotions rather than clearly defined characters. Leonid Desyatnikov's commissionned score, on the other hand, is a testament to the NYCB's commitment to the dance-music relationship. An overhanging sense of mortality dominates this twelve-part creation for soprano, violin and orchestra, harrowing in the range of feelings it explores. Russian Seasons is also in a sense an overview of what Ratmansky has so far achieved in terms of vocabulary - the seamless integration of folk movements, the low, sometimes quirky lifts he has experimented with in several ballets, complex neo-classical footwork, and seemingly free-flowing arms, adding a sense of modern immediacy to the whole.

Six couples in simple, colour-coded costumes take part in the ritual, but Ratmansky doesn't opt for the easy option of a series of pas de deux. Fleeting groups and pairings come and go instead - charismatic, lyrical, facetious. Ratmansky has the rare gift of infusing choreography with human warmth, and it is nowhere more evident as in Yulia Grebenshikova, the girl in green, a maverick surrounded by three men. Alternatively whimsical or dreamy, this Zakharova-like beauty proved herself the equal of her more experienced colleagues. In red, Natalia Osipova is of course an unstoppable force, letting loose in Ratmansky's twists, her urge to express herself more evident than ever in the devilish part she inherited from Sofiane Sylve. Around her, everyone on stage takes to the choreography’s minute stories and changing moods, with Anastasia Yatsenko and Igor Tsvirko particularly radiant in violet. The last song brings closure like few moments in modern ballet as Ekaterina Krysanova and Andrei Merkuriev, previously in orange, return in white – a harmonious echo of the words sung by Yana Ivanilova, their last dance tells of companionship and death, with Krysanova at once bride and Orthodox angel, achingly understated as she walks off into the light.

Yuri Burlaka's reconstruction of the Grand Pas from Paquita is the sort of ballet that makes you wonder why opera houses ever forbid patrons from sipping champagne and chatting away in the privacy of their box. The sheer extravagance and luxuriousness of 19th-century ballet is restored in full in this glorious 2008 production – from the richly painted curtain evoking the Palais Garnier's and the grand sets to the grand finale, a vision of the entire cast arranged in a luxuriant tableau, everything is absolutely larger-than-life – perhaps simply a synonym for the Bolshoi these days. In between? Noble men and women parading, an intricate children's mazurka, a pas de trois, a ballerina and a cavalier, too many variations to count, and possibly the longest coda ever created. This Paquita left the audience stunned, and the divertissement lovers literally dancing for joy.

Lavishly designed, with particularly vivid costumes (from the evening gowns of the court ladies to the roses and lace sewn on to the tutus, it is a feast for the eyes), this Paquita was also lavishly cast for its London debut. Maria Alexandrova's command of the stage is imperial in this hierarchical world. She goes to the core of the choreography and presents it without the slightest mannerism; her back seemed stiffer than on past occasions, but what she lacks in lyricism in Paquita's variation, so memorably performed by Ulyana Lopatkina, she often makes up for in sheer authority. It was no small feat, either, to follow Natalia Osipova on stage – the Bolshoi's comet performed the famous ''jumping'' variation (credited as an extract from Petipa’s lost ballet Trilby) with the stupefying elevation and all-devouring stage presence we have come to expect from her. What she is less known for is the attention to phrasing she displayed, perhaps taking her cue from the soft, dreamy nuances Ekaterina Krysanova and Nina Kaptsova brought to their own variations. Add to that Stashkevitch and Tikhomirova's charming turn in the pas de trois, Lantratov's picture-perfect jumps and Tsiskaridze's moustache, and you spell a sumptuous, three-course-in-45-minute meal of a divertissement. This Grand Pas is a new-old classic, restored to its true, crazy eccentricity - matched only, perhaps, by a certain Corsaire?