Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Emma Maguire

This Royal Ballet programme shows Sir Frederick Ashton's versatility of subject while never scrimping on unmistakeable style.

When the cast sheet warns the audience that there will be gunshots in each act, you know you are not at The Nutcracker. Kenneth MacMillan’s 1978 ballet Mayerling is famously about sex, obsession, madness and death – a cocktail that apparently sells enough tickets to ensure its regular revival at the Royal Opera House.

Christmas must be nearing when that traditional fare of sparkle, excitement and the surging score of The Nutcracker bursts in full flood onto the world’s ballet stages. Originally created in 1891 by Marius Petipa for the Mariinsky Theatre, the ballet has become the annual bread-winner for most companies (albeit in various versions), guaranteeing full houses and happy customers.

The penultimate programme of The Royal Ballet’s season takes the audience on a journey, from a joyous celebration with seven imperially dressed ballerinas, to a summer dacha filled with tense emotions, and finally back in time to the ceremonial rites of a Russian peasant wedding.

This Royal Ballet programme, staged to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II, makes an exhilarating tribute, and shows the company on top form in two very different works.