Red Giselle, Sadler's Wells, London

Put on the red light

What an impossible task Boris Eifman has set himself and his dancers: to represent on stage the person whom many good judges swore to be the greatest of all 20th-century ballerinas. No, not Pavlova, Ulanova or Fonteyn; we are talking about Olga Spessivtseva, star of the Maryinsky Theatre, of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, of the Paris Opera and even of the first British Giselle. And what was so special about her? Just a technique so perfect, we are told, that other dancers were awed when they saw it, combined with great dramatic passion.

But what made Eifman take her for the subject of his Red Giselle was something besides, namely that she went mad and (unnecessarily, it seems) spent 22 years confined in hospital. A real tragedy. Of course he cannot really show all this, but he has produced a dramatic ballet that comes closer to conviction than ought to be possible. He isn't realistic, and doesn't aim at total truth: Spessivtseva's artistic life was more complex than he shows, and her private life, I suspect, less so.

Eifman's great virtue is that he concentrates entirely on telling the story in dance, not mime, through vivid episodes that reveal different aspects: class, rehearsal, performance; life in Petrograd after the Russian revolution or in Paris between the wars; relationships with teacher, partner, officialdom and lover. Contrasting scenes press swiftly against each other, helped by Viacheslav Okunev's simple but striking designs (did we ever see such instantaneous costume changes?) and by Eifman's ability, on the one hand, to present large ensembles effectively and, on the other, to let a single dancer hold the narrative, alone on stage.

To present this and his other works he has gathered together an impressive company. Two casts take the leading roles on alternate nights: very different but both good. I admired Yelena Kuzmina, as the ballerina, for the way she brought out and distinguished contrasting dance styles, classic, romantic or modern; others prefer Vera Arbuzova's impassioned playing of the love scenes. As her KGB admirer (Eifman puts much emphasis on how the Soviet regime interfered with the arts), Yuri Ananyan's weighty rigidity was much applauded, but Albert Galichanin's quieter approach is no less effective.

Two outstanding young men both impress as the Paris partner: radiantly fair-haired Yuri Smekalov is the more glamorous, but Alexei Turko, slim and dark, dances and acts just as brilliantly. Andrei Ivanov gives a strange, distinctive personality to the Russian teacher/ choreographer.

These individual performances are reinforced by the quality of the ensemble, two dozen first-rate men and women who all transform themselves to the needs and personalities of the varying scenes, etching neat detail but never interfering with the total effect.

The hotch-potch score ought, in principle, to be a weakness, but it has been cleverly chosen to support the action. Mostly extracts from two Russian composers, Tchaikovsky and Schnittke (some familiar, some less so), it also draws on Bizet, some Charleston rags and, right at the end, the finale of Spessivtseva's most admired ballet, Giselle.

Against the odds, this mixture works, although the playing quality sometimes – and reproduction often – could well be bettered.