Mayara Magri

The choreographic partnership of Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot has long been celebrated in mainland Europe: a new double bill presented by the Royal Ballet is the first time their work has been showcased for British audiences. The first-night reception to Covent Garden was rapturous, but I wonder how long the excitement will last. What an astounding masterpiece this ballet is. I adore it, who couldn’t? Leon and Lightfoot specialise in movement characterised by a nervous staccato, suggestive both of psychic anxiety and robotic precision: the dancers look demented or brain-dead, animatronically controlled. Black is the dominant colour (Leon and Lightfoot are often their own designers) and the lighting does more to shade than illuminate. It is all very chic indeed.

Even if Schoenberg’s song cycle Pierrot Lunaire is never going to feature on anyone’s Desert Island Discs, it stands as a work of rich and complex resonance shot through with all the neurotically introverted obsessions behind expressionism. Through Albert Giraud’s 21 opaque lyrics, scored atonally for a soprano who declaims rather than sings them, accompanied by seven instruments, it presents some sort of parable of the tormented artist adrift in a hostile world. Perhaps one can’t be charmed by the result, yet its power is undeniable: it grips even when it baffles and repels.