Read: Dido and Aeneas/Acis and Galatea: the opera review

Having Wayne McGregor, resident choreographer of the Royal Ballet, direct and choreograph a double bill of baroque opera is an unusual move. It’s the first time in almost 20 years that Covent Garden’s resident opera and ballet companies have worked together, and it gives dance a chance to be seen as an equal partner in a house often perceived to favour opera. If the evening is a mixed success, at least it’s a bold adventure.

McGregor’s Dido and Aeneas, first staged at La Scala in 2006, is a stark and elegant production that showcases the intimacy of Dido’s love for Aeneas while setting it within the context of the mighty destiny that will tear them apart. Not surprisingly, given his natural instincts, McGregor infuses a sense of placement into the proceedings. He moves the chorus around so that their groupings look as chic as an East End gallery installation. He uses the dozen dancers like a chorus in the non-singing moments, changing their number and dynamic with each sequence. His language blends classical formality and contemporary wildness, the jutting hips and rippling spines sitting in opposition to the music’s elegantly upright aesthetic.

Dance is far more densely woven into Handel’s Acis and Galatea, in which each character is double cast as both singer and dancer. Their interdependence is made manifest at the end when Danielle de Niese’s singing Galatea enjoys a romantic pas de deux with Edward Watson’s dancing Acis. At this point, having been murdered by Polyphemus, Acis is transformed into the god of a fountain. I can’t think of another singer who could handle this dance with such touching sincerity or so much physical credibility. It goes some way to making up for de Niese’s wayward performance elsewhere.

As her dancing counterpart, Lauren Cuthbertson is adorably sweet, making the most of choreography that allows her a more tender and convincing amour than that of De Niese and Charles Workman, the rather prosaic singing Acis. The production generally is heavy going, perhaps because McGregor was more interested in the possibilities of his dance (you can see a gradual softening in his hard-edge style) than in the actual detailing of Handel’s music.

Box office: 020-7304 4000. To April 20

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