When she danced with the Bolshoi and American Ballet Theatre, Georgia-born Nina Ananiashvili was a ballerina of rare eloquence. Since 2004, she has been artistic director of her home company, the State Ballet of Georgia. Bringing them to London for the first time in their 175-year history, she presents a production of Swan Lake that shares her qualities of precision and lightness but lacks the dramatic power that made her such a blazing star.
It’s an attractive and traditional affair, with designs by Vyacheslav Okunev that feature wimples, bright colours and painted trees. Unencumbered by psychology, it is unashamedly a fairytale, driving through to its (surprisingly) happy ending with speed and attack.
