Royal Ballet: Swan Lake
Covent Garden
****
Scottish Ballet: Triple bill
Festival Hall
***

Marianela Nunez has long been a favourite with Royal Ballet regulars.

The Argentine-born dancer has a robust technique and fizzing humour which are ideal for roles such as Kitri in Don Quixote and Lise in La Fille mal gardée.

Her Swan Lake, which she danced for the first time with the Royal a couple of years back, was less convincing.

She got through Odile, the dark-hearted black swan, on whiplash dancing, but her Odette never made you believe in a Swan Queen, or see the ballet’s true meaning, which is not about a woman dancing on her toes but one trapped from her true self.

All change on Saturday night when Nunez opened the Royal Ballet’s run of the 19th-century classic.

Since her first stab at the role, Nunez has artistically grown.

Before, her Odette and Odile were differentiated only by colour, now there is believable difference between the two.

Her Odette is softer, more sorrowful, her arms like thistledown, while her Odile is measured, and more malicious for it.

Rather than portraying her as a flashy babe, she is a knowing mistress, calculating every move, every glance to entrap the hapless Prince (real-life squeeze Thiago Soares).

As with most season-opening first nights, some of the dancing in the corps was uneven (it’s the long summer break) and the make-up over done (Christopher Saunders was more Cirque du Soleil than evil spirit).

However, Nunez made you forget all this and left you wanting more.

That’s not something you could say of Scottish Ballet, who were dancing at the South Bank over the weekend.

Their three-part programme was a bold mix of fast-paced athleticism, gutsy dancing and genuine experiment, all well danced, but it was much too long.

Company director Ashley Page, who used to dance with the Royal and who’s doing a good job in Scotland, could trim 15 minutes from his new Pennies from Heaven, a feel-good piece set to popular songs from the Thirties.

The New York crash-and-banger Stephen Petronio could also lose 10 minutes from his Ride the Beast to Radiohead, a characteristically energetic piece with some nice fringed costumes that leave a shimmying trail in the dancers’ wake.

Fellow New Yorker Trisha Brown looks genuinely radical in For MG: The Movie, but that, too, drags. If you don’t believe me, ask the steady trickle of people who sneaked off early.

Swan Lake is in rep until 25 October. Information: 020 7304 4000. www.roh.org.uk