Christopher Wheeldon is hoping that by next year his much-hyped new troupe Morphoses will be a full-time company. For now, though, he has to rely on friends and favours to mount his annual London and New York seasons. Of course when you’re Wheeldon, who has worked with many of the world’s top ballet companies, the kind of talent you can call on is pretty impressive. So for this Wells season we have Leanne Benjamin and Edward Watson from Covent Garden, along with a selection of luminaries from New York City Ballet, led by Wendy Whelan and Maria Kowroski.

With Morphoses, the British-born choreographer aims not only to spotlight his own ballets, but also to present the work of others. Yet it was the non-Wheeldon repertoire which suffered most on opening night. We don’t see enough of Ashton’s serenely beautiful Monotones II (1965), but seeing it danced so shakily here (insufficient rehearsal, perhaps?) by Kowroski, Watson and Rubinald Pronk was only to be reminded of other more satisfying performances.

Ditto Robbins’s Other Dances, a perky duet created in 1976 for Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov. With such charismatic predecessors, the New York pairing of Tiler Peck and Gonzalo Garcia had a tough time living up to expectations; their performance was more dutiful than transcending.

The programme’s big guns were Wheeldon’s own, one a revival, one a world premiere. Polyphonia, his elegantly thoughtful response to Ligeti piano music, remains one of the best things he has done, and to see Whelan eating up the verve and precision of his taut classicism is always a treat. Commedia, the new piece, springs from a much brighter universe. Set to Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite (played by an underpar Royal Ballet Sinfonia), Wheeldon’s dance has the feisty spirit of commedia without its specifics.

The allegro is majestically swift and happy, and the more his choreography seeks out inventive and jolly ways to engage with the music the stronger it becomes. There’s a knockout duet for Watson and Benjamin (she is stunning, a sensation), their pairing tender, insouciant and utterly bewitching. And the designs, by Ruben and Isabel Toledo, supply much-needed visual stimulus. Happily, Commedia is repeated in programme two, which opens tonight.

Box office: 0844 4124300

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010