I think there should some sort of rule in ballet, about the standard of beauty that should be expected with the lead roles. They don’t necessarily have to be total stunners (although it helps), but by god, at least half decent. Sadly, last night’s Prince Siegfried didn’t quite meet my bare requirements, much less so Odette. So much less so that it was really really difficult to believe that the Prince wouldn’t rather have one of the other swan-maidens. Any of the other swan-maidens. And that I think is a real fundamental flaw. So, even though our second row seats were still not as near to the dancers as where Jane and I sat in St Petersburg, I think in the end I think we probably would’ve preferred to sit further away…

It wasn’t just her face (or the pained expression she wore on it for a good part of the ballet), it was also her build; she was short compared to the other girls (it always surprises me how short dancers are), and didn’t have the aristocratic grace in the way she carried herself that I imagine Odette should – and that the girl we saw in St Petersburg did. And the girl in St Petersburg, when she danced, you believed her arms were wings, every single muscle in those arms was active with expression. The girl last night, her arms were just arms. Less even – she didn’t seem to do much with them at all. (Hmm, I should probably say that I don’t actually know anything about ballet here, so it’s quite possible than that perceptible muscle engagement might not be desireable?)

The sets were impressive (I remember thinking last night ‘I don’t remember there being a set in St Petersburg’), but this actually took away from the ballet. Definitely the set they opened with, together with the evil baddie’s costume (they should have stuck with a plain black cape, instead of the shredded bin-liners which evoked a swamp monster), called panto to mind. I think it may be a case of less is more with set design if you’re doing Swan Lake.

But I digress, back to the dancing – yes, there were more swans in this version, and it did create effects you didn’t get with fewer bodies in that small theatre in St Petersburg (it’s hard to imagine flocking swans with only a handful of ballerinas). But in the end, that’s just setting isn’t it, for the dancing by the main characters, and that kind of didn’t really wow. I mean, the Prince did dance his bits beautifully, and the prima ballerina did manage to pull off 24 consecutive spins in the middle – that was impressive (it’s saying something though isn’t it that I was surprised she managed to pull it off). But I spent a good deal of last night sitting there thinking, where are those breathstopping moves? I’m sure they should have already done those achingly beautiful spins in their pas de deux, and those jumps that made my jaw drop in St Petersburg! And then we were in the final scene, and I waited for the parts that caught my breath in St Petersburg… and it didn’t happen. The music still stirred the blood, but what my eyes were getting didn’t add to it, and it just didn’t happen. Not once did I catch myself gasping the way I did in St Petersburg.

And then they drove the last nail in the coffin with the final part where the two ride up to heaven (post double suicide) on a cloud/chariot/whatever – but what kind of tacky American (and apparently it is) ending is that?! The damn thing jolted and veered slightly off course mid-flight – what a way to end what’s supposed to be the pinnacle of all displays of grace!