Giselle may return nearly every season but the five casts floated by the Royal this month promise to make the ballet anything but standard. The chemistry between dancers can do more to change a performance than any expensive re-design, especially when delivered by a cast as exciting as Tuesday's. Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta been paired together before, but have never put such playful, poignant flesh on their roles.
Acosta dances Albrecht like a prince, but with an edge of the street that brings a very sexy, very exuberant charm to his courtship of Giselle. Rojo, sweetly and gravely centred, is able to articulate each nuance of the choreography with transparent clarity, yet with a fizz of mischief that makes it her own. Albrecht's glamour is sharply underscored by Thiago Soares' Hilarion, all bristling angles and fumbled emotion - while the Count's social distance from Giselle is shockingly revealed in her mad scene at the end of the first act. Rojo plays this with a driven energy and, as she flails hollow-eyed around the stage, Albrecht's aristocratic friends draw in their skirts, fearful of being tainted by this appalling plebeian display.
The second act is slightly less compelling. Rojo as Giselle's ghost doesn't fully translate into air and light, while Acosta is never quite on the rack when he's being danced to death. But the corps are electrifying as the vengeful Wilis, especially Zenaida Yanowsky, flickering with a wild imperious spirit as their Queen. One of the evening's many extraordinary moments occurs when Yanowsky leans towards the lovers to deliver a final curse yet at the last moment seems to melt into yearning. As she leads her cohorts back to their cold empty graves, we suddenly realise that behind the tragedy of Giselle lies the collective tragedy of the Wilis. Dancing of this calibre isn't just about technique, it's an act of the imagination.
· In rep until February 11. Box office: 020-7304 4000.
