Cinderella, Royal Opera House, London

Ugly sisters, ugly sets

There are many reasons why a ballet production could want a re-design. Sets and costumes might be dated or worn to shreds. There might not have been room to store them. Or they might - as with the Royal Ballet's last Cinderella - have been sold as a job lot to Japan, twig-broom, slipper and all. But whatever the reason, the decisions attendant on remodelling a repertory favourite are not to be taken lightly, particularly when it happens to be a glorious exposition of choreographic genius such as Frederick Ashton's - and the Royal's - first full-length ballet.

Made in 1948, this is one of those rare old works that bolsters your faith in narrative dance as entertainment fit for adults. It may feature fairies and transformations, a sparkly godmother and pantomime uglies, but underneath the picture-book tackle it's plumbed to a deep, dark well of universal longing. Thanks to the shadowy, largely minor-key tug of Prokofiev's score, thanks also to Ashton's acutely musical responses, it becomes a story about proper grown-up wishing and wanting, wishing and wanting so hard and so often that the longed-for thing comes to pass. It's a story about a truly radical makeover, in fact. And it's a shame the Royal hasn't responded in kind.

The first we see of Toer van Schayk's set designs is a frontcloth of a huge fireplace, with portraits of Ashton and Prokofiev on the mantel. This at least establishes priorities. But each scene that follows is so blandly functional that I'm led to doubt that the designer ever clapped ears on the music, still less fell to its glittering thrall. There is one memorable touch - a glimmering dream-cameo of Cinderella's family group suggested in the embers of the fire that magically materialises into flesh and blood. But otherwise the parlour of Act I is dull and awkwardly scaled so that the heroine becomes a midget when standing near the hearth. If asked to dust the mantel she couldn't reach.

In Act II the heavy ballroom designs seem hell-bent on dwarfing everybody with their marching neo-classical columns and Tuscan orange sky - redolent of the kind of painting favoured by Mussolini, a red herring surely. Another disconcerting detail is that this pretentious marble pile looks nothing like the pretty castle that appeared earlier in Cinderella's dream. Did the fairy godmother switch estate agent during the first interval? A minor quibble, perhaps, but it doesn't help the general sense of connection.

Happily the dancers are securely plugged to the ballet's essential power supply. From the buoyantly dashing solo cavaliers at the ball to the least back-row fairy, every living thing that moves in this production is sublimely attuned to the Ashton style: a blithe, rounded ease allied to the trickiest needlepoint stitching. The potentially coy Fairy Seasons scene is a particular triumph of brilliant dancing. Christina Elida Salerno's Spring solo bursts with the energy of opening buds, and Lauren Cuthbertson's swoon-making Summer radiates more sexual heat than a good fairy really should know about.

Rarely does a 20th-century narrative ballet offer such a satisfying mix of solos, partner-work and ensembles - though Ashton's La Fille mal gardée runs it close. Everything in Ashton's choreography is exquisite, no number lasts too long, and here the endings and beginnings dovetail so deftly that you're left hankering for more every time.

That this is less true of the comic business may be down to pre-production over-hype. No pair of Ugly Sisters since the original cast has been as starry as Anthony Dowell and Wayne Sleep, so yes, of course they're not as funny as expected. That said, both have worked hard in front of the mirror, and Dowell at least (unrecognisable in his Edith Sitwell nose and crooked pencil brows) is successfully sour and mean, while Sleep, alas, just looks like Sleep in a dress.

Christine Haworth's costumes don't help the laughter quotient, totally blanking the opportunity to make us gasp at the sisters' misplaced vanity and fashion howlers. Sleep (the shy one) sports a rather cute crinolined pram suit, while the bossier Dowell's frock is unremarkable - what a chance to have missed! The best that can be said of the Uglies is that they don't steal the show from their worthier half-sister, who in the first cast is the delicious Alina Cojocaru - as fresh and spontaneous a dance actress as Ashton could ever have hoped for. Her descent of the ballroom staircase on pointe, while Prokofiev's strange, hushed music tilts giddyingly off-key, has a truly dazed quality that has you worrying for her safety. Even an unplanned moment when Cojocaru struggled to retrieve the slipper from her pocket (the sound of ripping stitches gave the game away) was ridden with Oscar-worthy ease, her face wreathed in happy tears as she found it. Johan Kobborg is a dreamboat of a prince for her, all bounce, all attentiveness, all presence. These two could carry the ballet dressed in plastic bags if they had to.

jenny.gilbert@independent.co.uk

'Cinderella': ROH, London WC2 (020 7304 4000), to Sat