Towards the end of Kenneth MacMillan's Song of the Earth, the lead ballerina is forced to accept the relentless, seductive call of Death. She is detached first from her chorus of friends, then from the arms of her lover, until she is left alone on stage, skimming backwards in wider and wider circles of empty space. On Saturday night, as Darcey Bussell danced the first of her three farewell performances at Covent Garden, it felt as though she could not have chosen a more poignant vehicle with which to take her bow on the ballet stage.
It's a role Bussell first danced in 1990, just a year after MacMillan plucked her out of the corps de ballet to create his full-length Prince of the Pagodas around her astonishingly precocious talent. And while a gala-styled evening might have been a more obvious showcase for her to say her goodbyes, it is MacMillan's setting of the great Mahler score that gives us the full gravitas of her talent.
Dressed in a simple white tunic and tights, Bussell makes herself the pure physical instrument of MacMillan's vision. All the familiar beauties of her technique are deployed with equal poetry and restraint - the calm centre from which her dancing radiates, the lavish stretch of her feet, the scything length of her legs and the rich curve of her arms.
At the same time Bussell's exemplary phrasing makes doubly startling the choreography's few overt moments of bravura. One vertiginous lift, where Bussell swings her long body upwards into a quivering arc, fearlessly balanced on the shoulders of her partner, her legs poised and sharp as a swallow's tail, is a moment of simple physical daring and simple sculptural beauty.
Throughout her performance on Saturday, Bussell danced flawlessly, as deep inside the choreography and the music as I've ever seen her. But almost as impressive were the rest of the cast - Carlos Acosta bringing a charismatic brutal tenderness to the role of Death - Garry Avis solid but vulnerable as the Lover and the two supporting ballerinas, Mara Galeazzi and Isabel McKeekan, fired visibly by the intensity of the evening.
Bussell always said that she wanted to retire early, leaving audiences with memories of herself at the top of her form; and fortunately for those who lost out in the rush to get tickets for these Covent Garden performances, her final appearance on Friday will be screened on BBC2.
