The paparazzi were out in force at Sadler’s Wells on Tuesday, snapping the celebs arriving for the opening night of English National Ballet’s Ballets Russes celebration, and glumly scrutinising hoi polloi attempting to make a normal entrance. Of course, the great Sergei Diaghilev, mastermind of the historic company whose centenary was being commemorated, paid as much attention to “decorating” his audience as he did the stage; but in those days, different sorts of people went through different doors.

When ENB was founded, as Festival Ballet, there was a direct line of inheritance from the Ballets Russes, reflected in revivals of works that used to be repertory staples years ago. But this first programme, of two, included the world premiere of a new piece by David Dawson, entitled Faun(e), inspired by Nijinsky’s original L’Après-midi d’un faune, and rather curious it is too.

Debussy’s languorous music is given in a two-piano version, with the pianists Kevin Darvas and Christopher Swithinbank on stage. The decor is backstage stuff: scene flats and objects that might have been left behind from other productions. Possibly we should imagine a ballet rehearsal, but a private one, for two men, a teacher and his pupil. They wear identical tops and skirts in taupe, of a cut that suggests 1920s flappers (without the beads). Why is anybody’s guess.

Dawson’s theme is the passing on of an influence, of information, from one generation to the next (not unlike Alan Bennett’s Hector in The History Boys), but equally clear and entwined with it is Oscar Wilde’s “affection of an elder for a younger man”. Raphaël Coumes-Marquet, a guest artist from Dresden, is the senior, dancing alone at the start, rapt in thought, creating his dance in sweeping, elegant lines. ENB’s young Esteban Berlanga enters, all eager anticipation, to be shown the steps and follow them, until the impetus of the movement has them dancing as a couple. I spotted one deliberate reference to a Nijinsky pose in hand gestures; the eroticism of Nijinsky is something the man is more aware of than the boy.

There is a “significant” moment when Coumes-Marquet points over Berlanga’s shoulder towards us, as if to show that the young man’s destiny is somewhere out there, then either whispers in his ear, or, I think, nuzzles it. We end with the boy dancing alone in self-possession, the mentor exiting stoically, mission accomplished. It was perplexing, tantalising, and compellingly performed by the two artists.

Thomas Edur and Agnes Oaks, ENB’s Estonian star couple, are on the point of retiring to return to their homeland. One of their final appearances opened this programme in Balanchine and Stravinsky’s Apollo, with their always distinguished beauty of line and calmness of manner. Their pas de deux was exquisite, but on this occasion, their portrayals of Apollo and Terpsichore seemed a little too remote and rarefied; in contrast, Erina Takahashi’s Polyhymnia was fleet and enlivening.

Much publicity has been engendered by Karl Lagerfeld’s designing of an exclusive tutu for ENB’s revival of the Fokine solo number The Dying Swan. Three women worked for 100 hours to create it from tulle and 2,500 feathers. The result is unfortunate, in that the extreme fluffiness of the bodice, continuing into a feathery choker, makes the dancer Elena Glurdjidze look plump and — absurdly for a swan — neckless. It was hard to concentrate on her fluttery dancing. In any case, this brief party piece (originally for Pavlova, 1907) has had an unnecessary longevity: the swan, like King Charles II, has been “an unconscionable time a-dying”.

It was lovely, however, to see Fokine’s Le Spectre de la rose again, this time in the Australian Ballet’s production: a young girl dreams of a visit by the spirit of the rose she carried at her first ball. The dancers here also came as guests from the Australian company. Gina Brescianini was sweetly ecstatic, swept up by the waltzes of Weber’s heady music, and Daniel Gaudiello, in his pink-petalled costume, brought off what has defeated some who have attempted the Spectre: to look not ridiculous but convincing as the asexual, perfumed creature, with his curling, tendrilly gestures. He had the requisite softness, fluency and grace, coupled with the strength and stamina to keep up the giddy pace in what is a fearsomely demanding nonstop exposure.

Finally came the big splash of exotic colours and extravagance in Leon Bakst’s famous designs for Fokine’s Scheherazade — the visual appeal masking the stodgy mime and action of this old-fashioned spectacular. Oh dear, all that mauling and attenuated foreplay of wives and slaves in the harem. Gavin Sutherland and the ENB’s orchestra gave Rimsky-Korsakov’s voluptuous music full value.

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