The Royal Ballet’s latest triple bill brings together two of George Balanchine’s most luminous creations — Serenade and Theme and Variations — and wraps them around a Michael Corder ballet unseen at Covent Garden for 23 years. The latter represents the director Monica Mason’s determination to keep British ballets alive.

It’s wonderful to see Corder’s L’Invitation au voyage after so many years. He was only 26 when he made it in 1982 but you can see that his was a fledgeling talent bursting with ideas and heartfelt intentions. It is set to five orchestral songs by Henri Duparc, sung by the mezzo soprano Harriet Williams, who wanders around the stage (rather gracefully, it has to be said) interacting with the dancers.

The work’s temperature is taken from the French poetry of the lyrics, so the dance vignettes move through happiness and desire to bitterness and loss, and finally to a sense of spiritual longing — like a journey of love, is how Corder sees it. The choreography unfolds its emotions with a flowing lyricism and high- minded passion and the performances are terrific, especially Leanne Benjamin, who makes everything seem important, Marianela Nuñez (representing sweet young love), and Melissa Hamilton, who made a stunning impression partnered by Edward Watson.

That’s the good news. The bad news is the original design, an Art Nouveau-ish mess concocted by Yolanda Sonnabend. The look is hugely fussy, annoyingly distracting, utterly confusing and hopelessly outdated.

No such caveats with the Balanchine ballets. This was a gorgeous performance of Serenade (1934) buoyed by elegance and felicity at every level. Lauren Cuthbertson found a wondrous sense of liberation in the work’s musical exuberance; Rupert Pennefather delivered a handsome and romantic presentation; and Nuñez infused her part with such dramatic yearning that the mysteries of the elegiac ending were even more touching than usual.

Theme and Variations (1947) is Balanchine at his most grand, heroic even, inspired by thoughts of Sleeping Beauty and Tchaikovsky’s rich music (conducted with vigour by Barry Wordsworth). The formality and sheer body of this showpiece is exhilarating and the cast, led by Tamara Rojo and Federico Bonelli, rose to its heights. Rojo was so creamy, dreamy and strong one wondered why she didn’t allow herself a brief smile of self-satisfaction.

Box office: 020-7304 4000, to Nov 10 2008

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