Opening with Act 2 of Swan Lake, they even managed to give us a backcloth with the moonlit lake, which transformed the concert hall stage, even if lack of space upstage somewhat hampered the backlit moonlight effect and we were then stuck with the cloth through the 2nd half divertissements, though it was only appropriate for The Dying Swan.

The Perm-trained Kirov guest star, Lubov Kunakova, was a perfect Odette, with fragile vulnerability and beautiful arms that were equally telling in the later Saint-Saens/Fokine solo, splendidly partnered by Vladimir Gusev, and it was no fault of Sergei Shtykov that the Russian version of the Ivanov/Petipa choreography robs Von Rothbart of all menace, despite lightning flashes.