Royal Ballet/Triple Bill
Covent Garden
***

Darcey Bussell could have danced anything, and we'd still have queued. The British ballerina is retiring from the Royal Ballet, and by chance or choice her exit number is one of Kenneth MacMillan's earliest, most demanding ballets.

1965's Song of the Earth is not a filigree Ashton work, nor does it have the diamond elegance of Balanchine, both of which Bussell made her own.

If she'd danced Ashton's Cinderella or Balanchine's Symphony in C, or even something MacMillan made late in his career and early in hers, she'd have left us with a pleasing momento of the ballerina in the music box. As it turned out, Song of the Earth proved a much more serious coda.

It's set to the Mahler song cycle, and in it MacMillan dovetails step and gesture with life's fleeting joys, and death's inevitability. There's no plot or narrative, just the Messenger of Death (the not-kidding Carlos Acosta), mimicking the living, blending in so we don't see him.

Gary Avis was a robust Man, and Bussell the serene Woman, leaning to Death's call, then pulling away. The final sequence to the shimmering sixth song (The Farewell) left you agog at her still-lustrous technique and late-flowering emotional depth.

Bussell's final performance at the Opera House is on Friday 8 June. It's sold out, but you can see her on BBC2 at 9pm. You have to wonder why the BBC waits for Bussell to retire before giving her, and MacMillan, the airtime they deserve. Minority interest, they say of major talent.

Next to Bussell the rest of the mixed bill paled.

• Royal Ballet triple bill to 8 June (020 7304 4000. www.roh.org.uk).