Manon, Royal Ballet: thrilling revival of a dark, sexy, compssionate masterpiece

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Another week, another heart-stopping revival of a perfect ballet. Earlier this month, English National Ballet played a formidable hand at the Coliseum, with its dusting-off of Giselle. But, just up the road at Covent Garden, Wednesday night saw the Royal Ballet up the stakes still further with a positively incandescent first-night performance of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon – 50 years old this March, and the one three-acter of his of which you wouldn’t want to change a single beat.