The West Australian Ballet’s triple bill Ballet to Broadway is as much a celebration of three renowned composers as it is of ballet.

Featuring the disparate music of Alexander Glazunov, Léo Delibes and George Gershwin, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, coaxed by the raw power of conductor Jessica Gethin, generated an enhanced intensity of phrasing, timbre, colour and emotion, which in turn seemed to inspire the dancers into moments of scintillating vivacity.

To open the evening, WA Ballet Artistic Director Aurelian Scannella invited globe-trotting choreographer Javier Torres to create a new version of the Pas Classique Hongrois from the third act of Marius Petipa’s Raymonda, first performed in 1898. 

The West Australian Ballet perform Raymonda. Photo © Clinton Bradbury

Raymonda is a Medieval tale of a French noblewoman caught between the desires of her Crusader fiancé and a Saracen Sheik. Here, it opens with a wash of neutral colour, dancers dressed in sparkling tones of beige, the women in tutus and glittering tiaras (Erika Turunen) and posed as though ready to perform before royalty, awaiting music that hasn’t as yet come.

When it does the dancers begin performing the demanding, classical techniques, which need a hefty...