Given the emotional storm that rages in the centre of John Cranko's Onegin, the ballet itself is built on a surprisingly brittle frame. Conventionally pretty dance numbers rustle their skirts in every big scene, stock characters - recognisable from a hundred other ballets - gesticulate crudely around the sidelines.
In the supporting roles the dancers have to take the initiative in animating their choreography, and several of Wednesday's cast failed to deliver. Caroline Duprot was cute and bubbly as the ingenue Olga, Federico Bonelli mild and handsome as her lover Lensky. But neither had any idea how to register the escalating folly and tragedy of their situation - Lensky's duel seemed to have been prompted only by a lovers' tiff.
For Tatiana and Onegin, though, Cranko has opened up huge choreographic possibilities - rarely plumbed so recklessly as by Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg. Their opening scenes are as good as we've come to expect - Cojocaru, with her shy, ducking gaze and awkward bookish emotion is a poignantly maladroit Tatiana. Kobborg's Onegin is an assured rake, his practised manners barely concealing his vulpine appetite for mischief.
What makes their portrayals unmissable is the vein of hectic, unstable romanticism they find in their characters, binding Tatiana and Onegin closer than they realise. In the mirror pas de deux Cojocaru flies into Kobborg's whirling embrace with a hysterical fervour that goes way beyond a young girl's fantasy. In the final act the now married Tatiana is desperate for another fix, and when Onegin returns to claim her Kobborg, too, has the demeanour of an addict - flushed, panting, grabbing at her. Cojocaru's Tatiana, torn between fidelity and desire, is almost visibly on a rack. Her body crumples and shivers at the unbearable arousal of Onegin's touch, when she arches in ecstasy you fear she will break. After she's built herself up to dismiss Onegin the aftershocks judder through her limbs. Cojocaru leaves the audience feeling almost as wasted as she looks.
· In rep until June 30. Box office: 020-7304 4000.
