Alla Osipenko once told me that at the opening night gala program given by the Mariinsky (then Kirov) to kick off their London season in 1970 she had turned a triple pirouette in the Black Swan pas de deux. “Alla, it didn’t look like you!” Natalia Dudinskaya complimented her later.
For me, something like that happened at City Ballet at last week’s Nutcracker, but kind of exactly in reverse, away from technique and toward grandeur, with a completely different dancer.