The opening night of English National Ballet's Swan Lake Season was distinguished by superlative performances from its two lead dancers. Roberto Bolle's work is never less than polished, but it can incline at times to an elegant vacancy. In this production, which is danced in the round, he looks better and happier than I have ever seen him. Unconstrained by a proscenium arch, and with a floor the size of an Olympic ice-rink, he really cuts loose. Ground-devouring leaps, perfectly weighted turns, and those seigneurial stage manners. At key moments, he remembers to act, too.
Polina Semionova trained at the Moscow Ballet Academy, and after graduating in 2002, joined the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin. Still only 20, she is astoundingly assured technically, with a high, taut line and a cool facility for multiple turns. Plush of bosom, occasionally neglectful of turn-out, and with beautiful old-school Bolshoi arms reminiscent of Bessmertnova, she brings a gentle sensuality to the role of Odette. Her Act 2 adagio was more girl than bird, and much less portentous and heavy-eyed than most interpreters make it. This was about love's thrill, its unbelievability, its joy. To Odile, by contrast, she brings a spectacularly exultant viciousness. Her fouettes are dashed off with finger-snap panache, and when she imitates Odette's wing-beats, she imbues the movement with a steely ripple like an uncoiling viper. Urging her on to greater bad-girl excess, meanwhile, is Von Rothbart, played with gothic extravagence by Gary Avis.
This is Derek Deane's best ballet. It thinks big, and it delivers. The 60-strong swan corps is impressive, and if one or two of them have you reaching for your crossbow, most acquit themselves well and several are truly excellent. A pity we don't get the Ashton pas de quatre in Act 1 any more, but his Neapolitan dance is still there, and Yat-Sen Chang and Simone Clarke do it full justice.
· Until June 19. Box office: 020-7589 8212.
