IT IS a classic and with no doubt one of the greatest of all the fairytale ballets which has enchanted millions of people across the world.

And once again Swan Lake did not disappoint the audience.

Hundreds of people flocked to the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton last night when the Birmingham Royal Ballet wowed the crowd with its performance.

After a not too exciting Act One, the production gets better and better with a superb finale.

This is also thanks to the excellent performance of Céline Gittens who played the role of the loving Swan Princess, Odette and her evil doppelganger, Odile.

Grace, pathos, long-limbed and remarkably clean “line” marked her performance.

Gittens, who made history in 2012 in Birmingham when she became the first black ballerina in the UK to take the starring dual role of Odette and Odile in Swan Lake, was with no doubt the best performer last night and the one who received most of the plaudits.

Her performance of the 32 pirouettes and fouettés in Act Three would probably deserve a review in itself.

Excellent were also the pas de deux in both Act Three and Two as she was supported by Tyrone Singleton’s well mannered Prince Siegfried.

They showed to have a perfect chemistry and their pas de deux were touching.

Another performance which definitively deserves to be mentioned is the one of Tzu-Chao Chou who played the role of Benno.

Meanwhile, Laura Day, Karla Doorbar, Maureya Lebowitz and Beatrice Parma enchanted the audience with a perfect execution of the timeless dance of the cygnets.

The Royal Ballet Sinfonia also plays justice to Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece.

The Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production by Sir Peter Wright and Galina Samsova is a classic which convinced the Southampton audience last night as it turned some of the most passionate and despairing music ever written into flesh and blood before our eyes.

The show will run until February 1.