Nigel Kennedy was clearly aiming to free his inner wild child when he recorded his own arrangement of Jimi Hendrix back in 1998. But it's less certain what Christopher Bruce is trying to do in making a ballet to it.
Three Songs-Two Voices is set to three tracks (Third Stone from the Sun, Little Wing and Fire) each of which becomes an anthem for the principal trio Zenaida Yanowsky, Tamara Rojo and Deirdre Chapman. Dressed in fringes and bell-bottoms, these hippy ballerinas form the powerful centre of the piece, pushing out across the stage in bold rebellious lines, their limbs flickering with electric detail. Though the women dally with their male partners and allow themselves to be swept up into the rocking Dionysian dances of the ensemble, Bruce ensures that we barely take our eyes off them: as a trio they have rarely looked more glamorous, mysterious or wild.
It's a credit to Bruce how well he keeps pace, not just with his dancers but with the music. Yet while this is a fine piece moment-by-moment, it's also a deeply frustrating one - for there is absolutely nothing that Bruce can do to turn this music into a dance score.
What Kennedy has done with Hendrix is just too maverick, too personal for a choreographer to handle. The music exists in limbo, neither period nostalgia nor contemporary sound. Stucturally it's too chaotic to support a 30-minute dance piece, and emotionally it's too full of conflicting clamorous voices to power a clear theatrical dynamic.
The first night audience loved it, though, for this has been the only new work of the season and the Opera House is screaming for something fresh. Yet although the Royal desperately needs to sharpen up its commissioning act it would be churlish not to cheer the scintillating dancing that's blossomed from this year's Ashton 100 retrospective. Thursdays cast of the Dream lived up to its title more triumphantly than any I've seen in years.
· In rep until June 11. Box office: 020-7304 4000
