The opening night of the Royal Ballet’s new season of Giselle was given to the company’s rising Argentinian star Marianela Nunez. Nunez is extremely popular, but Giselle is the ultimate test for a ballerina and this was her debut performance. Did she pass? More or less. What we already knew is that she is a lovely dancer. What Giselle demands in addition is the ability to act, to convey not only the shy peasant girl madly in love, who loses her mind and her life, but also the serene spirit of Act II, still in love with the man who has betrayed her, and intent of saving him from his fate at the hands of the Wilis.

What Giselle needs to be most of all is vulnerable, and this is made difficult for Nunez, through no fault of her own, by the fact that she is taller than her mother, and later, taller than the Queen on the Wilis. Other dancers should have been cast to make her appear waif-like, and later, dominated by the Wilis. She also looks a little too sophisticated to be so taken in by Albrecht and awed by the arrival of the court. Having said all that, she makes a fine job of the dancing, and her mad scene is very convincing. She is not as shy as most Giselles, but acts the scene of her betrayal extremely well. In Act II she is again lovely to watch, but not quite the other-worldly spirit.

Her partner, Carlos Acosta, plays Count Albrecht as a swaggering, manipulative seducer, until the tragedy of Giselle’s death brings the realisation that he really did love this girl. He is a terrific dancer, but brings a slightly roguish quality that is perhaps more Acosta than Albrecht.

Gary Avis makes Hilarion a rough but good-hearted man whose actions, born from a mixture of protectiveness and jealousy, precipitate the tragedy. It’s clear he is the suitor approved by Giselle’s mother. In this role Genesia Rosato is very touching. She performs the mime that tells the legend of the Wilis beautifully, and later, kneeling, distraught beside her daughter’s body, she sweeps Albrecht away as though he is some vile predator, with a look of pure hatred.

Helen Crawford makes one of the best Queens of the Wilis that I have seen. Beautiful, imperious and implacable, she also lets us see her deep sadness at having to lead this unchanging, friendless existence.

This production by Peter Wright is one of the best you can see; the story is put over clearly and logically, apart from the curious lapse you always get: why would Hilarion find that the crest on Albrecht’s sword matches the crest on the Duke’s bugle, when Albrecht is on a visit to his fiancée, not part of the family? John Macfarlane’s designs for the first act need improving though. This is early autumn, the time of the grape harvest; peasants are celebrating; why do we have all these bare brown trees?

Giselle continues until the end of May, with casts that include the incomparable Alina Cojocaru and Tamara Rojo. Box office: 020 7304 4000 or www.roh.org.uk