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Last night marked an important stage in Federico Bonelli's directorship of Northern Ballet, the first programme designed by him. It was a resounding success, the first showing by the company of one of the masterpieces of the last century, in my view, Hans van Manen's Adagio Hammerklavier; a world premiere by New York City Ballet dancer Tiler Peck; the revised (extended) version of Benjamin Ella's work originally created on some of his Royal Ballet colleagues. The Tiler Peck piece, Intimate Pages, was created to Janacek's string quartet, also called Intimate Pages. Many choreographers have produced ballets to this marvellous score, most notably, for me, Christopher Bruce, for Rambert in 1984, who represented the composer's passionate but doomed love affair with a married woman (the story behind the score) and wonderfully performed by Rambert dancers who in those days were deeply expressive. Bonelli claims that this is Tiler's first dramatic, as opposed to pure dance, ballet. However the plot was not so clear to me, just a young man in relationships with various young women, but the dance was exciting, with some patterns at times that reminded me of Balanchine, and choreography for the leading man that was fast and furious. The dancers responded with lively and precise movement and Harris Beattie was outstanding in the lead. Ben Ella's piece, Joie de Vivre, was the first piece and was an excellent opener. Created on violin and piano pieces by Sibelius, played live, as was all the music in the programme, it features three couples, with Joseph Taylor and Dominique Larose the leading couple. It kept reminding me of Robbins in the interplay between the dancers not unlike that in places in Dances at a Gathering and one lift exiting the stage was similar to one in In the Night. The dancers, who included Sarah Chun and Harris Beattie both so prominent later in Intimate Pages, danced fluently and communicated the relationships, between couples but also between the sexes, amusingly. My one reservation is that, although Sibelius is one of my favourite composers, there was insufficient variety in the pieces chosen. The centrepiece was the van Manen ballet. It was restaged by Rachel Beaujean and Larisa Lezhnina of Dutch National Ballet (both remarkable but very different ballerinas in their day) and they and the NB team (Bonelli himself took some rehearsals, having danced with DNB before joining the Royal) have done an excellent job. The choreography requires that dancers' arms or legs are absolutely parallel in places so precise accuracy is essential but they could not be faulted. It starts very slowly, possibly too slowly for some members of the audience but it is in keeping with the wonderful music by Beethoven. All the dancers were good, but Joseph Taylor was quite outstanding in a duet with Dominique Larose, I simply couldn't imagine any other dancer doing better. The choreography was quite complicated and varied and, as always with van Manen, there were emotional undercurrents in the relationship, but he conveyed them all with great clarity. Remarkable for a first performance. I just hope Kevin O'Hare will be inspired to bring back van Manen's Four Schumann Pieces, created on Dowell, Collier, Penney and Eagling; he was at the performance and is even listed as supporting the production of Adagio Hammerklavier. So, altogether a very good evening. Ideally an even more varied programme, for example with a more dramatic piece, might balance and contrast the dance emphasis. But the choreography was good, testing the dancers and giving them an opportunity to demonstrate just what good dancers they are now. On the surface the bill demonstrated what a good position the company is in, artistically and in dance standards; but as for other companies the current economic climate poses a threat. I'm sure all of you who can see the bill at the Linbury will enjoy it. I liked it so much I'd like to book an extra performance; but as my final train home was cancelled, I may not risk another evening performance and just stick with the matinee next Saturday.

Gutted not to have been able to make this performance tonight, but I hope others will comment.