“What I love about her is her emotion, her true emotion. She’s a ball of energy and emotion all together, quite an amazing thing. From the first time I saw her, I thought I want her to be my girlfriend.” Ivan Vasiliev, the young Bolshoi Ballet superstar, is talking about his girlfriend - though he could also be Romeo talking about Juliet.

Reports of ballet’s death are greatly exaggerated, but I’m not equally sanguine about the craft of choreography. Having sat dumbstruck through the four limping dogs masquerading as finalists in The Place’s prize “for dance” [sic] on Tuesday, I found myself amazed, simply amazed, all over again at the fecundity and sheer knowledge of Ashton’s Cinderella, having its umpteenth revival last night at the Royal Ballet.

Forty years ago, my childhood self wasn't in the least bored by Frederick Ashton's balletic animal magic: I saw it twice in cinemas large and small and asked for the soundtrack LP of John Lanchbery's masterly Victorian-potpourri ballet score for my birthday. If I get a bit restless now, it might be because I want more, which is less, in  terms of pace; the best stories here are all in the first half, the picnic finale is interminable and no doubt there's something odd about the mice, the frog, the pigs and the fox ending up together and all the same size. Otherwise it's good to see it again and remember the names behind the masks.

The phenomenal French ballerina Sylvie Guillem (b. 1965) has always been a modern woman, for all her classical ballerina dress. She joined the Royal Ballet in 1989 from Nureyev's Paris Opera Ballet, on terms of strictest independence, hardly saying a word to the press, while her image as a brilliant but truculent "Mademoiselle Non" grew and grew. The image belies the person, though - once you meet her, what’s striking is her lack of side, unblinkered intelligence and polite but firm candour.

Sir Frederick Ashton, Britain's unrivalled genius at creating ballets, had a simple attitude towards posterity. "You've heard his famous remark, 'Fuck posterity'?" says his nephew, Anthony Russell-Roberts, smiling but eyeing me apprehensively.