Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet is one of the most frequently performed ballets at Covent Garden, and regular fans may feel it can no longer surprise them. But for the ballet's first outing in the refurbished House (its 327th performance) there are actually changes to be seen. The existing designs by Nicholas Georgiadis have been re-worked (partly to allow the ballet to be toured more easily) and while they don't alter the essence of the production, their feel is lighter and loftier, and they allow the dancing to breathe more freely.
One single improvement is that the first act balcony scene now runs on more smoothly from the Capulet ball - and the fact that it happens to takes place in a deserted ballroom rather than in the most famous location in theatre history doesn't matter.
The shock of Romeo and Juliet's first glimpse of each other at the ball and the menacing presence of the Capulet clan still echo in the space where the lovers chart their growing passion. The final scene in the crypt is also improved by having the action compressed into a much smaller space. Juliet is no longer required to race around the whole stage and we see so much more intimately that death is the only place which the lovers can call their own.
Of course, different dancers re-imagine the ballet, too, and the other novelty for Friday's audience was seeing Nicolas Le Riche performing Romeo to Sylvie Guillem's Juliet. Le Riche, a principal dancer with Paris Opera, was last seen in London partnering Guillem in Ashton's Marguerite and Armand, his rugged dancing and dramatic impetuosity a foil to her delicate intensity. The more extended role of Romeo does, in fact, expose the ragged edges of Le Riche's technique (suprisingly ragged for a Paris-trained dancer) but it's also a lesson in how performers can often define their style out of their limitations.
Le Riche's footwork and pirouettes are not perfectly finessed, yet as compensation he rides the swell of the music with powered assurance and his beautifully articulate arms and hands give wit to both his phrasing and his acting. In real life, his Romeo would be a man of bounding energies, a great teller of jokes and a great kisser.
With this confidence, he matches Guillem's headstrong, free-spirited Juliet well. When we first see the latter, she's less a vulnerable child than a mischievous flirt, dancing on a bubble of laughter and impatience. Her accelerating love for Romeo is stormily physical and Le Riche's strong partnering allows the pair to take heady risks.
What's lacking in Guillem's Juliet, though, is a sense of tragedy. She's so fine and free and glamorous from the start that we do not feel her actual powerlessness before fate and the family vendetta.
Our hearts, though, may have been hardened on Friday by the indecisive, gloomy playing that came from the pit.
• In rep until April 16. Box office: 020-7304 4000.
