Feeling down in the dumps? A little depressed? Then I can only recommend a visit to the Empire this week.

English National Ballet's production of Swan Lake is one of the best with its wonderful costumes, sets and superb dancing.

Throw in Tchaikovsky's score beautifully realised by the orchestra under conductor Anthony Twiner and you have a sure-fire winner.

Last night we had the added attraction of Elena Glurdjidze from the former Soviet state of Georgia making her debut in the difficult double role of Odette and Odile and proving to be one of the great interpreters.

Her technique was faultless, she looked wonderful and her Odette, the fragile swan who woos the Prince Siegfried, everything you would want from the role.

As the sexy black swan Odile she may have lacked a necessary sensuality but this was a performance of grit and vigour which impressed with its sheer visual excitement.

Her partner, Russian-born former Kirov dancer Dmitri Gruzdyev, added his own thrilling character as the Prince, both a solid support and entertaining soloist.

But it was a company show with the corps de ballet at their very best and former company director Derek Deane's choreography - based on Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov's classic movement - always full of the thrill, swirl and sentiment of Tchaikovsky's wonderfully tuneful score.

Here were the four cygnets doing their breath-taking dance, Alice Crawford and Yat-Sen Chang having fun with the Neapolitan tambourine dance and Swede Jan-Erik Wikstrom also debuting as the evil swan master Rothbart, a role which earned him the traditional pantomime-styled booing at curtain call.

Despite the traditional ending in which the two lovers jump in the lake to be reunited in death, the production is so beautiful that it is impossible to leave without feeling uplifted, happy and satisfied.