A vanity exercise: Carlos at 50, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed

In 2015 Carlos Acosta announced his retirement from the Royal Ballet and the classical repertory. It seemed like the right moment; he was 42 and, truth to tell, some of us could detect a slight waning of his prowess and physique. Time to move on: since then, he has done great work in his native Cuba and is currently a venturesome artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet. He is a rather wonderful person.

Eight years after his withdrawal from Covent Garden, however, he has made a brief return – addressing an itch, he says, that had to be scratched. The house sold out for five nights running and the reception was rapturous, but I am left with mixed feelings.

Few things are more agonisingly embarrassing than witnessing a once great artist who can no longer hack it but won’t let go of past glory. (I had the misfortune to be there for Callas’s disastrous final London concert and squirmed at Nureyev’s dogged earthbound latter days.) Acosta by no means made a fool of himself – he remains in superb shape by all normal standards – but one was conscious of how carefully tailored his dancing was, how his energy was conserved rather than expended and how he had lost his beautiful soft jump, as lithe and effortless as a panther’s.

It doesn’t make sense to have Balanchine’s Apollo danced by a mature man – it’s a parable of callow youth acquiring wisdom and inspiration – so Acosta’s interpretation doesn’t yield much resonance. Yet he knows this choreography so intimately and does what he can with such tact and clarity that he got away with it, and his exceptional partnering skills are undimmed.