Neglected classics, whether books, plays or ballets, are usually neglected for a reason, and so it is with the three-act ballet Raymonda. A hit in 1898 for the Imperial ballet in St Petersburg but unperformed in this country since the 1960s, its ineffectual heroine, fuzzy sense of geography and offensively silly plot have made it impossible to stage in full – at least in Britain.

It was never going to be a bumper year, just a bumpy one. With theatres dark until May or later, the usual 11 or 12 months of potential live-dance going was reduced to four or five. There was one bright shaft of optimism in late spring, and another in the autumn, when the gloom-clouds parted to allow a few weeks of almost-normality. But now we seem to have come full circle. In the past 10 days three out of London’s four Nutcrackers have either closed or been drastically postponed – one of them to this time next year. The show must go on, it will go on. Just not yet.

How do you picture Gene Kelly? Most likely in his effervescent screen persona, either as the burly ex-GI of An American in Paris, or as the hoofer without a raincoat in Singin’ in the Rain.

Welcome back Andrew Litton, Conductor Laureate of the Bournemouth Symphony, for the latest of many happy annual returns since his tenure as Principal Conductor between 1988 and 1994.

Two households, both alike in dignity … and both launching their respective seasons with a production of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet.

Crisis-management has always been part of a choreographer’s skillset, but staging a new ballet with two large alternating casts has rarely been fraught with so much risk. It was one hell of a week for Valentino Zucchetti, first soloist at the Royal Ballet and creator of Anemoi, the 20-minute work that opens the final programme in the company’s 90th birthday season.

“A tonic to the nation”. That was the hoped-for effect of the Festival of Britain in 1951, and its concrete legacy was the Royal Festival Hall. Seventy years on, it’s fitting that English National Ballet should be the first through its doors, post Covid closure, with the offer of another kind of pick-me-up – a summery, free-spirited, generous ballet gala which has something for everyone.

The Royal Albert Hall – 150 years old this year and with a commemorative £5 coin to prove it – is a great  space for many kinds of spectacle but has done few favours for ballet. I make an exception for Derek Deane’s in-the-round Swan Lake, if only on the grounds of its having been seen by 750,000 people many of whom might never have set foot in an actual theatre.

People often ask why it is that in ballet there are different casts on different nights, a practice alien to opera, musicals and theatre. The most obvious reason is practical. Ballet companies keep a number of principal dancers on salary who need regularly to strut their stuff. Another reason is that dancers develop distinct individual qualities – technical, musical and dramatic – which imprint on the works they dance.

Two regrets and a tentative hope before full praise for what has to be the best complete Swan Lake in concert ever.