The Royal Ballet opened its 2006/07 season last night, and although no one is complaining about the women, it was the men that shone from first to finish.

It may be the programme, three abstract ballets from the Seventies with huge moves for the men; it could be the big music (Stravinsky, Poulenc and Janacek); it could just be that the Royal has had so many lovely ballerinas for so long that we didn't see the men, or at least not clearly.

Either way, they literally leapt into focus yesterday, dominating all three ballets, and then circling your head like ghosts from magic lanterns long after the curtain came down.

Admittedly, Jiri Kylian's exuberant Sinfonietta was always a better ballet for the men than the women ( they struggle with Wafty Skirt Syndrome). It begins with a glorious sequence of accumulating leaps for the men, who then seem to collect each other in corralling runs, and then centrifugally pull together in accelerating spins. Buoyed on high by antiphonal trumpets, Jose Martin, Ricardo Cervera and Martin Harvey looked like they'd never come down.

In Glen Tetley's Voluntaries, Rupert Pennefather and Thiago Soares achieved the near impossible of distracting your attention from Sarah Lamb, a spare American who has quickly established herself in the Royal's top ranks.

Pennefather and Soares were rising last season, but on the opening night of this one they were exemplary partners in the luminous pas de trois. In the pas de deux, Federico Bonelli was on a par with the awesome Alina Cojocaru, and in the corps, Steven McRae and Thomas Whitehead looked especially crisp.

It was a similar story in Stravinsky Violin Concerto. Johan Kobborg we know is a dancer of rare intelligence, but even Edward Watson, who can be variable, held his own against Darcey Bussell in this late Balanchine dazzler whose deceptively casual, quirky gestures actually tell a tale of rigour and precision. Antonio Pappano, the Bill Stilton of the Opera House, conducted from the pit. His presence was palpable.

.In rep until 16 October. Information: 020 7304 4000. www.roh.org.uk.