The Rudolf Nureyev Russian State Ballet has no connection with the legendary dancer other than the fact that it is based in the town of Ufa, where Nureyev received his early training before escaping his provincial background, first to Leningrad, and then to the West. All the same this is a pretty decent company, who present an enjoyable version of the great classic, with some fine dancing from the principals.

Sabina Sattarova dances Odile with a fluid assurance, but above this, conveys all the nervousness, the dawning of hope against the odds, in this woman who has been turned into a swan. She even hints at a touch of Stockholm syndrome — when the captive forms an attachment for the captor — even though Nail Hairnasov’s Von Rothbart is too camp to be either appealing or frightening.

It’s a pity that, as in so many Russian versions, the marvellous mime sequence in which Odette explains her predicament, and how she can be freed by a man who swears his love, has been dropped. In Act III, there is again subtlety in Sattarova’s performance as Odile, and we feel that she regrets that she is there to trick Siegfried, and would rather win him for herself.

I very much liked Dinar Shakirov’s Siegfried. He too can act, and conveys Siegfried’s loneliness, his wonder at discovering Odette by the lakeside, and his embarrassment when confronted with four girls, one of whom he should choose as his wife. He is not a great technician, but he could surely have made a decent job of the opening variation of the ‘Black Swan’ pas de deux , but it was absent.

An increasing number of companies are now inserting the role of a jester to keep things bubbling along. He has no place in this work, but Iksander Murasov did a terrific job to enliven a rather lacklustre cast of minor characters, with the dancers in the Pas de Trois in particular giving a half-hearted performance. Murasov bounds here and there with his quirky smile and athletic technique, and brings what might otherwise be some rather dull moments to life.

The end has been changed, and instead of dying together in the lake so that they may be together in eternity, the doomed couple survive. Siegfried fights Von Rothbart and pulls off one of his little wings, after which the evil one obligingly lies down among his captive swans and dies, freeing them all.

Swan Lake is at The Everyman until Thursday. Box office: Tel 01242 572573 (www.everymantheatre.org.uk).