They wrote an opera together The Man With Footsoles of Wind 1993

They wrote an opera together, The Man With Footsoles of Wind (1993). He seems to havefriends all over the world, and you can understand why He is jovial, relaxed and splendidly talkative. Solo percussionist Robyn Schulkowskyarrives from Berlin; the cellist Joan Jeanrenaud of the Kronos Quartet arrives from San Francisco; the pianists Jill Richards and Mathilda Hornsveld arrive from South Africa; and the Duke Quartet – well, the Duke Quartet are based in London. As a successful composer, his birthday bash is a little more public than most, and Desert Steps brings together friends and admirers to honour his music in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Kevin Volans is celebrating his half-century on 14 July, although the real date is 12 days later. Highly esteemed back home and known here for his sensational Romeo and Juliet (which is performed by the Kirov Ballet), in Paganini he presents an evocation of the violinist’s life which is exhausting in its whirl of pirouettes, muses (led by the ethereal Nina Kaptsova) and tormentors.Royal Ballet, Sadler’s Wells to 31 July Booking: 0171 863 8000. The late Leonid Lavrovsky was the choreographer who created it in 1960 to Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Without the darkly dashing Nikolai Tsiskaridze in the title part of Paganini, added as an opener to Giselle, the banal and dated choreography would have been less bearable.

Sergei Filine as Albrecht, equally good-looking, was a polished partner and stylish, if not stunningly virtuosic, dancer.The Bolshoi, like the Paris Opera Ballet, is exceptional for its array of men, where other companies have problems finding men who can dance, let alone look good. The Bolshoi’s Giselle, Svetlana Lunkina, had an elfin face, fine- drawn physique, and suitably high-strung air. Her dancing was as light and perfect as possible, but she is just not a phenomenon as Guillem is. And then there is Guillem’s Giselle, the horrifying stillness of her mad scene contrasting with her former vitality, where joy of life is synonymous with joy of dancing.Guillem dances so effortlessly, so naturally, her body is so exactly responsive she can produce inflections and subtleties of movement that no one else can There is simply far more in an enchainement danced by her. Hilaire, impossibly handsome, strikes just the right note of autocratic elegance and infatuation: how well-observed, for example, when Berthe mimes her warning about Wilis, for him to be more occupied with the warmth of Giselle’s skin and only half able to conceal his contempt at Berthe’s uneducated superstition. They are a long-standing stage partnership and interact wonderfully. They have pondered and extended their roles, introducing new touches so that suddenly Giselle and Albrecht slough off the staleness of accumulated interpretations to appear fresh and alive again.

Is it that Russian ballet has forgotten how to do mime? Or is it that British training has, over the decades, refined it to a vividly explicit and dramatic medium?Sylvie Guillem and Laurent Hilaire, guesting with the Royal Ballet, are quintessential French dancers, but were also superlative in their mime and naturalistic acting. It is not just that there is less of it, but that it comes across asartificial and vague. Hands stroke the air in generalised wavings and flourishes that could mean anything; detail and precision are absent. But what always disappoints with Russians is the way they perform mime.