Two-Part Invention.

Ashley Page's latest work for the Royal Ballet, Two-Part Invention, juxtaposes two very different scores: Prokofiev's Fifth Piano Concerto and Robert Moran's 32 Cryptograms for Derek Jarman--a minimalist piece that lasts just under ten minutes. The nine dancers who open the ballet, to Cryptograms, are mostly newcomers, led by the more experienced Peter Abegglen. When the youngsters reappear, briefly, in the second part, to the Prokofiev concerto, they seem phantoms of the future, haunting their elders.

Two-Part Invention is full of ghosts. The nine youngsters, dressed alike in gray outfits, hair sleeked back with gel, are shadowed by films of themselves. It takes a while before you realize that the figures within a yellow neon frame are illusions, changing size as they recede and advance toward their real-life "partners." The shifting perspective distracts from onstage relationships between the dancers, bold and abandoned in clusters of twos and threes. Gender differences are hard to distinguish in the somber lighting (by Peter Mumford, who also designed the sets); men are as supple as women, all wear soft shoes.

As Moran's bright, episodic score ends, the neon-lit screen fibs away to reveal a corps of classical dancers in silhouette: the women wear pointe shoes and tutus, their tuxedo tops matching the men's red and black jackets. Three color-coded couples emerge for pas de deux: the green pair dances amicably side by side; the blue pair is in spiky dispute; the purple pair is the romantic heart of the work, to the concerto's slow movement. Prokofiev's echoes of his own ballets, particularly Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella, are reflected in Page's choreography--yet more ghosts, this time of the past.

The ballet is overloaded with bodies and steps--a step for almost every note. Without any leeway, the performers cannot contribute their own interpretations. The link between the two parts is tenuous, even when both casts are united in the finale, framed by the yellow rectangle. Page, in his eleventh work for the company, has not yet learned to leave an audience asking for more.

New York City Ballet's Christopher Wheeldon, in his first work for the Covent Garden stage (after creating Souvenir for the Royal Ballet's touring group), is tastefully restrained. His pas de deux, to Ravel's Pavane pour une Infante Defunte (also Wheeldon's title), is a ballerina display piece, designed to show off Darcey Bussell's high extensions in tilted promenades. Her partner (Jonathan Cope or Adam Cooper) pursues her ardently, as though she might vanish at any moment.

She is indeed a vision, a specter of the lily from whose petals she emerges. Her long skirt is soon whipped away by her partner like a veil; she wafts about in lounge pajama pants and bustier, an idealized woman in a perfume commercial. Invisible ties drawing her to the man are momentarily broken, enabling her to dance an airy solo: he demonstrates how high he can jump before she spins back to her arum lily. Pavane, ignoring the dramatic potential of the music's dedication to a dead infanta, is fragrantly pretty. Without Bussell's allure (a young corps member, Chloe Davies, performed in the alternate cast), the piece is merely vapid.