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Reader rating
Dir: Monica Mason.
Cast: The Royal Ballet
Description: A new production of Ashton's Rhapsody, set to the music of Rachmaninov, performed with August Bournonville's most famous ballet, which is produced by Royal Ballet Principal Johan Kobborg.
Trains: Tube: Covent Garden 
Phone: 0207304 4000
Website: www.roh.org.uk
Email: onlinebooking@roh.org.uk
Extra info: Food, Air Conditioning
In-flight entertainment: but perhaps Rhapsody star Carlos Acosta needs to pause
Now here's something to cheer you on a drab January night. The Royal Ballet at the Opera House dancing Napoli Divertissements.
It is, admittedly, an excerpt ballet, meaning 30 minutes of gala-style pops, and it's not fully staged, meaning rather feeble props doing the work of a full set, but even so, August Bournonville's dancing is still light and balm and charm.
Napoli Diverts is based on the dances the Danish choreographer saw on a visit to Naples in 1841. How much of the original remains is debatable, but the mood is evocative and the dancing airy, nimble and gracious, with the men gallant and the women gentle. Nothing is exaggerated, nothing strained, just young beauties dancing and flirting under a fictitious Italian sky. How much better can it be?
The Bournonville style is a very precise, very restrained set of beats and leaps which give the impression of ease, but which are actually very difficult. An especially tough step is a leaping change of direction, only one that happens so quickly that the dancer seems to move in two directions at once.
Steven McRae was especially adept at this. Indeed, the young Soloist was master of all the moves. McRae's star is ascending, and we will surely see masses of him, but Napoli is an ensemble piece and someone should tell him to stop inching forward when others are dancing. It looks pushy. On Tuesday, Napoli was teamed with La Sylphide, forming the all-Bournonville prong of this forking double bill (the other is Ashton's Rhapsody).
Sylphide is the story of a man who pursues a fantasy woman only to lose his flesh-and-blood one in the process.
Johan Kobborg has staged Sylphide (and Napoli Diverts) for the Royal, and I have to report some pretty naff props (the toad, the cauldron, the bird's nest) in his production. There's also a none-too-convincing lift that's meant to evoke the image of a sylphide in flight (it doesn't). However, on Monday Tamara Rojo was so good as the Sylphide that you didn't mind.
Less good was Carlos Acosta in Rhapsody. Like everyone else, I'm a fan, only on Monday the Cuban sensation looked rushed - as if he'd just flown in from another ballet at another opera house in another part of the world. Acosta delivered the dazzle, but his famous finesse was patchy. Perhaps he needs to pause.
• Rhapsody/La Sylphide: 19 January, 6, 9 February. Napoli Diverts/La Sylphide: 17, 20 January. Information: 020 7304 4000. www.roh.org.uk
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
We thought both Carlos Acosta and Leanne Benjamin and the other dancers were on top form. Their duet was pure dancing. When seeing Rhapsody, one has to be careful to judge the dancing and not just get carried away because the music is so gorgeous. This was not the case on Monday evening. The music was beautifully played and the dancing matched the music.
- Carol, London, England
