Swoon! London City Ballet are positively glowing in a night of dreams – and ghosts from dance history

Sadler’s Wells, LondonAlina Cojocaru astonishes in John Neumeier’s Ghost Light, an ethereal meditation on time, while Glen Tetley’s Firebird has much to cherish

A ghost light is the name for a single lamp left on stage when a theatre is dark, and one glows throughout John Neumeier’s ballet Ghost Light. Also never not glowing is Alina Cojocaru, superlative ballerina and guest dancer with London City Ballet, who has a longtime working relationship with Neumeier and his Hamburg Ballet – with whom this work was originally created in 2020.

When Cojocaru materialises onstage in silence, so ethereal it’s almost mystical, she is like a ghost of Swan Lake’s Odette, wings fluttering, eyes half closed, lost in a memory. Cojocaru’s divine delicacy embodies all of the romance of ballet, until suddenly her steps glitch, she stumbles over a chair and comes to. The stage is a place of dreams, for all the dancers who have crossed its boards and will continue to do so (superstition says that ghost lamps also allow spirits of former dancers to return to the stage). Neumeier evokes some of these dances in this piece, from a stray sylph upstage, to earnest solos, sparky allegro and two young men in a tender duet, passing each other sometimes in parallel worlds, sometimes in moments of connection.

The parts of this ballet were created separately during Covid with bubbles of dancers, a practical measure. But the result is actually a beautiful rendering of the passage of time and its circularity – of dance’s, and dancers’, evolution. Neumeier, at 87, has seen his fair share of stages – likewise Cojocaru, now 45, who always brings real poignancy.

It’s only three years since this new version of London City Ballet formed and the company is looking very fine. A major strand of its USP is piecing back together forgotten ballets and tonight that’s the late Glen Tetley’s Firebird (1981), celebrating Tetley’s centenary. An impressive Ellie Young dances the Firebird character, in this case a young woman ostracised from her austere family, who finds a partner in Joseph Taylor – and what a great partner he is: strong, lyrical and so attentive.

Tetley was a bridge between ballet and modern dance and the company pays exacting attention to form, in swift, clean steps and emotive expression. The narrative may be fuzzy, and the final scene – with its glorious Stravinsky score – nowhere near as majestic as in Michel Fokine’s (and designer Natalia Goncharova’s) version, but there is much to cherish here.

At Sadler’s Wells, London, until 24 October. Touring until 6 December