Opening in the darkest week of Edinburgh's year, Scottish Ballet's new production of Aladdin oozed oriental magic. It cuts away from the Disney treatment, body-swerves a camp Widow Twankey pantomime style and goes for a picture-book Chinatown look - full of dancing dragons and brilliant reds and golds.
Choreographer Robert Cohan heads an impressive collaborative line-up. Carl Davies, composer of film and television scores (The French Lieutenant's Woman, Pride and Prejudice) makes the music. Lez Brotherston, outfitter and set designer to Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, frames the story in red and black. Colin Falconer dresses up the dance for everyone who likes a costume change.
Frames within frames, the set opens doors to the many scenes of the story. The village, the cave of jewels, the sultan's court, the princess's boudoir - all dovetail together in this neat and clean version. Deep black space projects the stained-glass colour of costumes and props. The mechanics of carpet flying and sliding scenery is as smooth as silk. The disappearing acts (such as the eye-popping death of the evil magician) and conjurings by illusionist Paul Kieve are wonderfully impossible. The company seems youthful, sure-footed and rejoice in a cheekily talented Aladdin from Jesus Pastor and Linda Packer's sweet-pea princess. So why does this lavish production feel flat?
Could it be that the music, with its splendidly carved filmic crescendos, is a tad on the big side for the body of the dance? Could it be that the length - though full of incidental action - requires some pruning? Could it be that, despite all the special effects, the magic lamp itself just does not work? The lamp, with its sleeping genie, is right at the heart of the story, and it should amaze us with power. It doesn't. The genie is a whiz of modern technology, dazzling us in green laser light, but he's two-dimensional, with no part to play.
The dance, too, lacks presence. Though a leading member of the contemporary dance revolution in this country, Cohan takes no risks and sticks to safe, familiar balletic routines. But there is one gem. After a chitter-chattering, somersaulting village scene, Aladdin drops down a clever trapdoor into the dark, starry depths of the treasure cave, and a whirl of shiny tutus and silverskin suits begins as the jewels dance. The orchestra rolls out a grand sound for the ballerinas, pitching the white, blue, red and green set pieces from romantic bells to tick-tock rhythm. With a waltzing homage to Tchaikovsky towards the end, it's the highlight of the evening.
Scottish Ballet's Aladdin is described in the programme as a new "classic". Surely that is something only time will tell.
• Until December 30. Box office: 0131-529 6000.
