The Bolshoi Ballet is back at the Royal Opera House for a season, and - rightly - we cheer, and remember to thank Victor and Lilian Hochhauser, who have made such delights possible for nearly half a century. We also, at Monday night's opening, held our breath after the brief introductory scene, when the lights went out for some minutes. (I wanted to sing "Dancing in the dark".) But someone went back-stage with a shilling for the meter and matters started again, joyously, ebulliently, with heels kicked high, with fans and fandangos, and Barcelona alive with japes and pirouettes. The production is jolly and was made five years ago by Alexey Fadeyechev in an honourable decision to revert (as far as is now possible) to the influential 1900 staging for the Bolshoi by Alexander Gorsky, with its insistence upon dramatic verities rather than the stifling balletic conventions of the late Petipa era. So, some re-positioning of scenes in Act 2, some removal of accretions from later productions; but in essence here is dear old Don Q in all its bright and trusting improbability, seething with cliches and given sets and costumes that evoke the era of Gorsky's staging and do not get in the way of the action. (I infer, nonetheless, that some later additions, in music as in dance, have kept their honoured place in the production.)

The whole purpose of Don Quixote is, of course, bravura - bravura in step, in style, in getting away with the unlikely. It is a prodigious lie, told by a master liar, and I love every idiot moment, especially when the Bolshoi's artists unleash their boldest skills, their easy authority. A century of classical training, of glorious tradition in folk dance, of dramatic derring-do, sustains each moment. One of the most extraordinary things about Monday's performance was a gypsy dance in Act 2, given with staggering conviction by Yuliana Malkhasyants. She grieved, she smiled, she tore 16 passions to tatters and was the very incarnation of tsigane allure, as she held the opera house audience in the palm of her hand. Here was prodigious understanding, tradition and expressive skill, and you will find it nowhere but in Moscow. (Not since Plisetskaya blazed in the first act of Don Q at Covent Garden 40 years ago - and, Maya Mikhailovna, that was one of the crucial moments in my ballet-going life - have I seen such all-conquering passion.) Production and performance, in sum, are all one might wish. Fadeyechev's recension gives plenty of space for dance, and the Bolshoi's artists fill it. Maria Alexandrova was Kitri, brilliant in step, with diamantine points, vivid legs, brightest effects and, withal, a winning manner to beguile both us and her Basilio, Sergey Filin. He is a clean, elegant virtuoso, cooler than many another interpreter but charming, quick-witted in dramatic playing. The classical numbers were done with elan: Ksenia Tsareva has a deliciously light jump; and the dryad scene was as pretty as can be. The Hispanic jinks could not have been higher - Maria Allash is adorably the Street Dancer - and I salute Viktor Alekhin's spindle-shanked Gamache, with his wonky knee and his heron's walk, and Alexey Loparevich as a noble Don and Alexander Petukhov as a funny and endearing Sancho. All in all, a most happy start to the season.