They come later in the festive season when the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre bring The Nutcracker. But first are the Kiev Classical Ballet with a musical menagerie to enchant children in maybe their first ballet experience, and delight the adults with them.

It is a double bill featuring Peter And The Wolf and Carnival Of The Animals, and runs from December 13-15. Kiev Classical Ballet's Dome debut will feature some of the most sublime and vivid pictorial music depicting animals, played by their 38-piece orchestra - which will only create an even more exciting atmosphere at this show which is by yet another touring Russian company new to our scene here.

Prokofiev's composition Peter And The Wolf is a musical story incorporating a narrator. Peter risks his grandfather's warning to stay near home and soon is up against wolf, whom he outwits with help from his animal friends, Bird, Duck and Cat. Prokofiev's unerring selection and use of solo instruments to portray these characters is legendary.

Prokofiev's music has already put great ballets onto the world stage in the shape of Romeo & Juliet and Cinderella. The ballet world took up Peter And The Wolf first in New York in 1940, then London (Rambert the same year) and later Berlin, yet not Prokofiev's native Russia until the Bolshoi in 1959.

Carnival Of The Animals is set to strikingly original music by Saint-Saens, the Frenchman unlauded in the ballet world other than for this. Ballet here was not his idea.

His "Zoological Fantasy" for two pianos and orchestra included the soon-famous duet for piano and cello, The Swan, which ballet seized in 1907 and turned into a world famous solo. The Dying Swan was choreographed by Fokine, and made immortal its dancer, Anna Pavlova.

Interestingly, the first ballet of Carnival of The Animals, by Rambert in 1943, omitted the swan. But the Kiev version includes it in an exotic birthday parade including, to name a few, lumbering elephants, skipping kangaroos, and extrovert goldfish.

The storyline is salutary. A small girl ends her birthday celebrations by throwing her new toys out of the window but while she sleeps they come to life and teach her that she shuold be kind to animals.

The Kiev Classical Ballet and Orchestra have 28 dancers drawn from the Kiev and Moscow ballet academies, plus four principals from the world-renowned Kiev Ballet. Established in the Ukraine in 1867, they made their first visit to the UK in 2006 and began touring annually.

Expect enchanting sets, fantasy costumes and brilliant choreography.

Performance dates: Peter and the Wolf and Carnival of the Animals 13 Dec at 7.30pm, 14 Dec at 2pm and 5.30pm, 15 Dec, 7.30pm and 16 Dec 1.30pm (schools matinee). Ticket Office 01273 709709 / Online booking & audio clips www.brightondome.org

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