The National Ballet of China has arrived for a week's season at Covent Garden, bringing Swan Lake as its opening gambit on Monday night, and following it on Friday with Raise the Red Lantern . This repertory ploy is astute: we are to see not only that the Chinese troupe is a fine classical ensemble in the most sacred of balletic fare, but that the company is also able to make works that reconcile the demands of its national identity and theatrical traditions with the exigencies of the western dance-manner it has embraced.

The company is, as we saw with this Swan Lake , and as I have had the pleasure of reporting over the past decades, a strong, assured ensemble. These dancers have not put on the academic manner as a convenient disguise: the style is theirs by right, and they speak its language with authority.