The sacred rites, the sacred cliches are on view again at Covent Garden. Wherever two or three are gathered together in the name of Tchaikovsky, feathers and rampant temperament, there will a public be, too.

Swan Lake, betrayed and faked by almost every classic dance company, is the ultimate balletic swindle, because it is so damn difficult to dance, even more difficult to stage and almost impossible for its principals to interpret with any credibility.

So what of the Bolshoi Ballet's staging, which entered the repertory of the present season on Thursday night?

Three decades ago Yuri Grigorovich, then director of the troupe, gave his company this version, which identified the drama as a fateful struggle in which Prince Siegfried was doomed by his destiny (the "ci-devant" von Rothbart) into a hallucinatory and tragic quest for true love - the Swan Princess Odette.

The production was decently respectful of Muscovite tradition, but included new choreography as well as psychological themes which were brave for late-Soviet times. Siegfried became a doomed Tchaikovskian hero after the style of Yevgeny Onegin and Herman in The Queen of Spades. It is a view of Swan Lakein which one can believe, not least because of the devotion of the dancers to the idea of academic dance as mirror of feeling. They dance, blessed with a century of tradition in Swan Lake. They believe, because this is a significant work of art for them.

What I don't believe is Grigorovich's truncated ending. He abandons the usual triumph of love over adversity: instead, Destiny snatches Odette away, leaving Siegfried brusquely abandoned and grieving. To achieve this, the score has been nastily truncated, a few curious bars have been tacked on, and we watch a finale that is perfunctory and unconvincing.

The great fascination of the evening was Svetlana Zakharova's incarnation of Odette/Odile. Impeccable physique and a clear, true academic style - perhaps a little cool for the emotionally fraught Swan Princess, but stunningly malign, sexually irresistible, as Odile. Very fine. Andrey Uvarov has princely technique for a princely role, and the presence of the wonderful Maria Allash and Maria Alexandrova in double roles suggested how rich the Bolshoi is in artistry.