La Sylphide

The Perm State Ballet's second programme at Dublin's Olympia Theatre on Wednesday night was a double bill: Bournonville's La Sylphide, followed by Act 3 of the Tchaikovsky/Petipa Swan Lake. Though it made an overlong programme, it highlighted the very different classic styles of the great Danish choreographer and the even greater Russian, working 60 years later.

Unfortunately the company could not bring its own set and furnishings for Act 1 of La Sylphide and, though the replacement just about functioned, you need a deep armchair to conceal someone effectively within it. There were also teething problems with the attractive Act 2 forest setting, but the dancing dwarfed such matters into insignificance.

Elena Kulagina's Sylph had all the childlike innocence which made her Juliet so appealing last year and, though her technique is impeccable, it is her power to stir the emotions which makes her a great artist. Radiy Miniakhmetov made a fine Scottish farmer, lured away on his wedding day, his nimble footwork equalled by his mood changes from bewilderment to infatuation to despair. Indeed all the cast - from Natalia Nezhdanova as the deserted bride and Dmitri Durnev as the witch, to the last sylph and villager in colourful plaids - were a delight.

Herman Lovenskjold's music was splendidly played (on tape) by the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under conductor Pavel Bubelnikov, as was all the music in both programmes. Yet the audience reserved its wildest applause for Act 3 of Swan Lake, brilliantly danced by Natalia Moiseeva as Odile, Vitaliy Poleschuk as the deceived Siegfried, Alexandr Lodochkin as the Jester and the whole cast in Alla Kozhenkova's lovely costumes and deep perspective palace setting (previously used as backing for the Concert Programme).

The programme will be repeated tomorrow at the Cork Opera House and from November 3rd to 5th in the Town Hall Theatre, Galway.