The entry of the accession countries into the European Union always promised to increase the cross-border flow and so it has proved. Tourists flock out from the west in budget airlines. Opera and ballet companies pour in from the east.

Earlier this year the Polish National Opera came to visit Sadler's Wells Theatre. Now it is the turn of the Hungarian National Opera and Ballet, whose three-day visit with an all-Bartók programme formed part of the "Magyar Magic" Hungary in Focus Festival.

First up was the opera Bluebeard's Castle, an hour-long drama of claustrophobic tension, as two singers circle each other in the spheres of the mind. Play it on compact disc at home and the imagination flies off to places where only Freud could be your guide.

Staged productions find it difficult to equal that and the opera tends to come down to earth with a bump. Watching this Hungarian production was like tuning into a cable TV channel showing re-runs of cult science fiction from the 1960s.

There were the same clunky bits of abstract set, the same psychedelic lighting. Nor did the music inspire the senses much, when our home-grown Royal Ballet Sinfonia down in the pit was far too busy worrying about getting the crotchets and quavers in the right place. At least the two singers, Andrea Meláth and Peter Fried, sang with true Hungarian spirit, and for them we were thankful.

It is the particular distinction of Gyula Harangozò's choreography for The Miraculous Mandarin, writes Clement Crisp, that he could discuss his production (made in 1941) with the composer.

What we see in this staging has not only the imprimatur of authenticity but also an aptness, an inevitability, that no other staging in my experience has ever conveyed. (No need to dwell on such mismanagements of the score as the one where the whore was played by a male dancer.)

Harangozò's vision (Bartók's vision) is handsomely realised in this revival by his son, also Gyula Harangozò and director of the ballet company. The narrative is rooted in the music. The dance is resonant with drama - the Mandarin an inexorable figure, as scary as any cinema monster; the whore moving from bored competence in her task to final terror - and Harangozò's language is fluent, very much of its time in its clarity (no psychological fripperies).

It never cheats the score or the characters. It benefited on Monday night from exceptional interpretations by György Szakàly as the Mandarin and Katalin Hàgai as the whore. Hàgai is a dance actor of notable communicative power and technique: every nuance of the role (and of the music) made truthful.

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