Spartacus review: Bolshoi Ballet gloriously let rip with unparalleled pyrotechnics

There's nothing subtle about Spartacus, Yuri Grigorovich’s swords and split-jumps blockbuster, a Bolshoi Ballet signature for more than 50 years.

At one level it’s a fascinating glimpse into ballet as Soviet propaganda, an occasionally creaking period piece that mixes broad-strokes storytelling (enslaved gladiators = good; rich ruling Romans = bad) with MGM theatrics and an overblown score.

But it’s also a chance for the company’s men to shine, for its principals to break free from the usual princely constraints and its lower ranks simply — gloriously — to let rip.

Since its creation in 1968, ticket sales have largely been driven by the chance to see some of dance’s most impressive stars attempt a series of unparalleled technical challenges – one-handed lifts at head height, scissoring jetés and tricksy revoltades tackled at breakneck speed.

But this is not a ballet that can rest on brute strength alone; forgo the charisma of its tragic central hero and Spartacus becomes little more than a crowd-pleasing pyrotechnic display.

Denis Rodkin — opening the Bolshoi’s three-week summer residency at the Opera House last night —has that charisma in spades. From the second his Spartacus stumbles on stage, wrists shackled, we sense the depths of his despair. Later we watch as indignity turns to anger, then hatred, for his oppressors.

His duets with his lover Phrygia (a coolly elegant Anastasia Denisova, pictured together, right), are impressive, if a little dramatically underpowered; much better are his scenes with Artemy Belyakov, deliciously camp as the Roman army leader Crassus, left. Meanwhile, reigning prima Svetlana Zakharova is clearly having the time of her life as the lissom spitfire Aegina, whether it’s seducing Spartacus’s followers with wine, or going-for-broke in a series of dazzling pirouettes as she urges Crassus to take revenge for his humiliation at Spartacus’s hands.

Until August 10 (020 7304 4000, roh.org.uk)