What we got on Monday evening at the Oxford Apollo was a taster menu of excerpts from eight different works. There was a period during the Iron Curtain years when the Kirov or the Bolshoi would come to the UK for a rare season and serve up programmes like this.

The intention was to show the versatility and virtuosity of their artists, and it was in such a way that we were first astonished by the young Mikhail Baryshnikov, and introduced to the sheer poetry of Natalia Makarova.

The disadvantage of theseprogrammes is that the pieces are seen out of context, often with inappropriate sets, and without the emotional build-up and surrounding spectators on stage which are necessary to make them work.

The portmanteau title of the company grandly implies that the producers have combed the great Russian companies for their "best". What we saw were some very good dancers, but hardly stars. There was also a feeling that things had been done on the cheap - recorded music instead of an orchestra, and a gothic backdrop which was just about all right for the last act pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty, but looked very odd in the opening piece from the Flower Festival at Genzano. This was danced with lightness and accuracy by Irina Pyatkina.

The first part of the programme ended with the full second act of Swan Lake, the first of the two wonderful 'white acts' choreographed by Lev Ivanov. Here again the dancing was fine, particularly Nina Semizorova as Odette, but much of Ivanov's magic had been replaced with inferior material. All credit though to the four cygnets who performed their difficult piece with a rare softness

Finally, we came to Walpurgis Night,. Here the girls literally let their hair down, while young men cavorted in an attempt at lasciviousness, but achieved instead the only moments of humour in what seemed like a long evening.