"Ha," you almost hear Brighella laugh as he wields his toy dagger, make-believing a fight with the moonstruck Pierrot. "Ha", again, as he morphs it into a knowing nod, and then steals and cheats with the glossy swagger of a bullying child.

Carlos Acosta is so eloquent as the worldly Brighella, the commedia dell'arte dark clown, he seems to speaks lines. This being ballet, he doesn't say a word. All you hear is a hiss of breath as he ha-has at poor Pierrot.

Acosta perfectly catches the smiling, insouciant cruelty of Brighella, as does Deirdre Chapman as the sulky, homey, then wanton inamorata Columbine.

The pair are reprising their roles in Pierrot Lunaire, Glen Tetley's 1962 masterwork which he staged on The Royal Ballet last season not long before he died.

It's said that this cast was Tetley's favourite, and watching Acosta, Chapman, and Ivan Putrov as Pierrot, you can't disagree. Putrov, recently back from a year-long injury, gives a sustained portrayal of the sexually baffled, romantically gauche white clown, moving us with his meekness as Brighella and Columbine pant and paw.

Putrov is on stage for 40-odd minutes, and each one feels authentic. His easily led, easily mocked Pierrot dreams in happy isolation, then giggles from imagined tickles, and is agog when Columbine appears. He cries confused tears when she deserts him, and is all anxious adventure when she returns in red frock and flowing locks.

Tetley's dance-drama - it's not really a ballet - is memorable for the plainness of its staging and intensity of its telling. Schoenberg's speech-song, performed by the excellent Linda Hirst, provides the sandpaper chaise for Pierrot's exposed soul. Rouben Ter-Arutunian's minimalist designs are a lesson in suggestion. Combined with Tetley's strangely simple steps, you have the hit of last night's triple bill.

You expected Will Tuckett to snag that prize for his heavily trailed, super-glam new version of the Weill/Brecht Seven Deadly Sins. Tuckett is no choreographic innovator, it's true, but he is an able storyteller and deft director.

He also assembles strong teams - last night's included the well connected Martha Wainwright (sister of Rufus, daughter of Loudon III) as the singing Anna, the excellent Zenaida Yanowsky as the dancing Anna, and Lez Brotherston's clever designs (his first for the main Opera House stage). Yet the production feels both cluttered and flat, and the choreography doesn't capture Anna's appalling fortunes, nor her response to the macabre ambition of her family.

Part of me doesn't believe that ballet chanté works - with all grovelling respect to George Balanchine and Kenneth MacMillan, both of whom produced versions of The Seven Deadly Sins (Balanchine made the original in 1933). A singer and dancer at the same time divides the attention, and narrative needs focus, at least for some of the show.

MacMillan's La Fin du jour completed the triple bill. With the exception of Sarah Lamb, the dancers looked nervous, but it was still a good reminder that MacMillan did shimmering glamour as well as black dog.

• In rep until 9 May. Information: 020 7304 4000. www.roh.org.uk