A once-in-a-generation dancer

SVETLANA ZAKHAROVA: AMORE Coliseum, WC2

IN THIS touring triple-bill from the Bolshoi, a showcase for prima, prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova, the curtain rises on vast, suspended plaster casts of Auguste Rodin’s seething, tortured sculptures from the Gates of Hell. Set artist Maria Tregubova does the sculptor proud.

Zakharova is Dante’s heroine in Francesca da Rimini. We see Francesca and Paolo (Denis Rodkin) falling in lust over a book: a little reading is a dangerous thing. Zakharova dances doomed, desperate passion beautifully. Her face is delicate as ivory; her body like steel filament. The only hitch in this sumptuous scarlet, white and black production

(choreography by Yuri Possokhov, music by Tchaikovsky) it is that Paolo is so very in love with himself, you wonder what’s left for Francesca.

In Rain Before It Falls (Patrick de Bana, Bach) Zhakarova, in violet silk, spills and pools like the ink in a Rorschach test. Lifts show her compass-point legs in exquisite extensions. She is mesmerising, but the pace is sepulchral. Her partners de Bana and Denis Savin wear sex-shop black leather trousers and mesh vests — yuck.

Strokes Through The Tail (Marguerite Donlon, Mozart) is magnificent mischief. Zhakarova calls it her “hooligan” piece. She struts like a chanticleer and rolls her neck with style. Her five men wear tutus; Svetlana a tailcoat. She is Wendy in charge of the Lost Boys as she pecks, pushes and points at them, audience giggling. A rare chance to see this once-in-ageneration dancer.

Until Nov 25

(0207 845 9300, londoncoliseum.org, )