Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera House Summer

Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet is returning to London for a three-week residency at the Royal Opera House this summer. Balletomanes can look forward to seeing four staple productions from the company’s repertoire.

The season begins with former Bolshoi Ballet director Yuri Grigorovich’s Spartacus, set to Khachaturian’s thrilling music. This epic ballet, first performed in London in 1969, is a Bolshoi classic that displays the company at its most powerful.

The male dancers are particularly well showcased as Spartacus leads a rebellion of gladiators and slaves against ancient Rome. With marching battalions, mortal combat, and the heroic death of the eponymous character; ballet fans can expect a sensational staging of a monumental uprising.

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Swan Lake may well be the world’s favourite ballet and Grigorovich’s adaptation is a poetic masterpiece.

The Odette/Odile role is perfectly suited to the magnetic lyricism of the Bolshoi’s prima ballerinas. What’s more, the drama and dreamy dance content make the most of the entire company as the love between the swan princess and her handsome prince intensifies.

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For dance lovers looking to be amused, surprised and enchanted, Alexei Ratmansky’s staging of The Bright Stream, to a vibrant Shostakovich score, combines acrobatics, disguise and farce.

The Bright Stream is a Soviet era ballet, set in a collective farm and ostensibly created as a hymn to the working classes; but the Soviet authorities frowned at its zany depiction of dancing farmers, a cycling dog and men on pointe shoes and promptly banned it. Ratmansky unearthed the score in 1995 and determined to re-stage the work.

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Finally, the Bolshoi Ballet production of Marius Petipa’s Don Quixote, brilliantly staged by Alexei Fadeyechev, uses breath-taking virtuoso dancing to convey the excitement, colour and wit of this love story with just the barest of nods to Cervantes' masterpiece novel.

Drama, comedy, love and merriment combine in this high-spirited account of the love between Kitri and Basil. Thwarted by Kitri’s father, the lovers overcome his resistance to their union – with the help of unlikely hero Don Quixote, of course! Regular ROH visitors will be interested to compare and contrast this version with the Royal Ballet's own, staged by Carlos Acosta.

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Casting across the four ballets utilises the company’s roster of star dancers. Principal dancers including Olga Smirnova, Yulia Stepanova, Svetlana Zakharova, Vladislav Lantratov and Ivan Vasiliev are among those performing.

Except for The Bright Stream – which has not graced the Opera House stage in over ten years – this summer’s programming from the Bolshoi Ballet is not the most adventurous. Nevertheless, these tried and tested ballets, danced by the Bolshoi’s stunning dancers, are sure to entice balletomanes to the box office.

Note: Tickets go on sale to the general public on 3 April, 9 am