On their toes and on their own.

DM Ballet star sings! Ballerina speaks! Russian dannseur curses with flair ... in Russian. Joinning forces in the London revival of the 1936 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical On Your Toes, Adam Cooper, Sarah Wildor, and Ireck Mukhamedov have breathed new, life and accuracy into the backstage drama of romance and back-stabbling in the Russian ballet. * Originally studded with jazy numbers by George Balanchine, who headlines an irresistible chalice to stretch their talents and surprise the public. Long before of classical artists by striding boldly into the world of popular entertainment. All three were walking away from The Royal Ballet, which lost Cooper in 1997 after Matthew Bourne's innovative, "all-male" Swan Lake made him an international heartthrob. "I felt trapped at The Royal Ballet," he told an English newspaper before On Your Toes opened in Leicester in 2002. "It is such a tiny world and there is so much snobbery."

Wildor followed him into the unknown in 2001, when the scheduled repertoire offered her few opportunities. "If I'd stayed, I would have turned into a nasty, bitter person," she explained later. She launched her freelance career in Matthew Bourne's Blitz-era Cinderella, creating the title role opposite husband Cooper and then moved on to the London company of Susan Stroman's Contact.

A Royal Ballet principal for ten years, Mukhamedov found himself without a contract when Ross Stretton became director in 2001. Never daunted, Mukhamedov tackled The King and I and danced with other ballet companies and his own concert group.

As if singing, speaking, and tapping as the affable hoofer Junior Dolan weren't challenging enough, Cooper also made his choreographic debut with On Your Toes, drawing on his early training at Arts Educational School for the fast-paced swing numbers. They fused seductively with Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, the steamy Balanchine creation for the glamorous ballerina Vera Baronova. No surprise he and Wildor had as much fun as a married couple can have in public. In the smaller role of Morrosine, Junior's jealous rival, Mukhamedov romped through La Princesse Zenobia, which recycles the exotic conventions of Schehdrazade, mocking his own history from the heroic flamboyance of Spartacus to the passion of Mayerling.

Although the five-week run at Royal Festival Hall played to 80 percent of capacity, there are currently no plans to transfer this production to the West End or Broadway. But having reinvented themselves, its stars clearly have no intention of turning back. "Why would I want to join another company?" Wildor protested in 2002. "I've just left one."