Peter Wright’s staging of The Nutcracker for the Royal Ballet celebrates its silver jubilee this season. Hurrah for him, for it, for the company. Here is, I swear, the best account of this often betrayed work that I have seen, without challenge in the world today. (Yes, I know about Balanchine for New York City Ballet, and versions in Paris and St Petersburg and Moscow, and Birmingham and probably Broadmoor: I have seen them all.)

Where this production triumphs is in its feeling for the story’s Hoffmannesque setting: mysterious, gemütlich, brilliantly evoked in Julia Trevelyan Oman’s handsome design. There is also Wright’s willingness to use what shards remain of Ivanov’s original choreography (notably in the snowflakes scene and the great pas de deux, a marvel of grace). Wright’s innovations about dramatic motive, his ability to keep the action within a lovingly defined period, and his responsiveness to Tchaikovsky are admirable. (Is this score more felicitous than that for The Sleeping Beauty? Discuss.)

The usual seasonal revival on Thursday night brought many pleasures. Koen Kessels directs the score like a lover, allows it to breathe. Gary Avis is a superb Drosselmeyer, alert to every moment of drama, playing with unfailing clarity and sensibility, a prodigious dance actor. I think Iohna Loots a delicious Clara, showing us pathos and joy and sweetest dancing, while Ricardo Cervera is a dashing, joyous Nutcracker. Master Thomas Bedford is a spirit of liveliest misrule as young Fritz, and has (I hope) a splendid future. And Miyako Yoshida and Steven McRae were the culminating Sugar Plum and her Prince Coqueluche.

Reared, lucky me, on Alicia Markova and Alexandra Danilova as sublimest Sugar Plums – because the role demands the grandest of ballerine – I salute Yoshida for the charm and ease of her interpretation. For McRae a gasp of sheerest delight. The role is nothing but bravura steps and good manners. McRae offers these with an elegance of means, the dance fine-drawn and etched in light, that ravishes the eye. The finest classical dancing must look simple (I think of Yury Solovyov, Jean Babilée, Erik Bruhn, Baryshnikov) and McRae deploys a prowess that is shaped happily on the air, having a momentum and a pulse that never fail. Essential viewing. But then, so is this production. ()

Tel +44 020 7304 4000