This must be one of the best known and loved of all the romantic ballets, and I can’t believe I haven’t taken my 15-year-old daughter (who has been dancing since she was three) to see it, so I jumped at the chance to see Moscow City Ballet’s production.

There was an excited buzz in the theatre while we waited for the curtain to go up, probably from the little girls in the audience, including a couple who came dressed in tutus.

My daughter was entranced from start to finish. She commented in the interval that “that slow dèveloppé into second into arabesque en pointe must be so painful!” and was delighted to see her favourite move (posé turns) and the Holubetz step (in the Hungarian dance) performed live.

My favourite part was the second act, at the lake, which includes the famous dance of the little swans and the stunning pas de deux, although I did find my attention was often caught by the swans of the corps de ballet in their gorgeous white tutus.

The simple painted backdrops kept the emphasis on the dancing and also on the beautiful costumes. Natalia Romanova is superb in the demanding dual role of Odette/Odile, although I preferred her as the black swan (Odile) and Mihai Cercas is athletic and dashing as Prince Siegfried. Aleksei Moskvichev put on a sparkling and witty performance as the court jester with his gravity-defying leaps, and Evgeny Silakov was a dark and menacing Von Rothbart. The only error I noticed was that one of the male dancers was slightly out of time in the first act.