Lo and behold, after having told me last year he was a man only for evil roles, it was Dymchik Saykeev - the company's outstanding character dancer, who we now saw in the role previously reserved for the veteran Pavel Kholoimenko.

It was particularly exciting to find in a benevolent caste Saykeev, the man whose winged Rothbart trademarks their Swan Lake and whose Fairy Carabosse will stalk Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty here on Monday and Tuesday.

Having confessed to me (see the interview on this site) that the nasty roles interested and freed him but the nice ones potentially bored and shackled him, here he was dispensing surprises with smiles, grace and good humour – and it seemed to come entirely naturally.

He was vibrantly active in a role often elsewhere portrayed semi-statically. And Saykeev rippled with involvement and vitality, plus bringing the bonus of musicality, firstly in his role of master of ceremonies and the focal figure of the Prologue, later in his surprise presence in the Kingdom of Sweets, and finally his return in the Epilogue when he confirmed that he has been the architect of the whole fantasy.

Boxing Day at the ballet had colour in the excellent costumes throughout, and spectacle in the snow world of Act 1 scene 2 - that was worth the wait as the curtain descended and paused after the domestic battle between the rats and the nutcracker's own army that was ended by Clara's rescue intervention that transformed the nutcracker doll into princedom.

But whoever is being groomed for their role of Clara in future Nutcrackers remains a mystery to the fans of SPBT who in numbers this year are defying the credit crunch to enjoy the ballet's crack and munch of nuts and nougat as usual in the theatre at Christmas.

Anna Podlesnaya, now a mother and 38, danced the child role as solidly, impeccably and admirably as ever on Boxing Day and her control and consistency provided technical and artistic satisfaction, if not the believability an audience would feel watching someone younger.

She rightly received the lioness' share of the curtain call applause but one was left wondering which of the younger coryphees are champing at the bit for their chance to fall in love a toy nutcracker gift from Uncle Drosselmeyer and be transported by a prince into a dreamworld of sweets and snow.

With prima ballerina Irina Kolesnikova proving ever more often a ballerina absenta with SPBT on tour, the opportunity to alternate with Podlesnaya, and eventually replace her, is a rich one.

Ahead of the Coryphees in the queue there appears on the personnel list only one dancer, new principal Marina Vejnovets, but she was cast in the subsidiary role of the Snow Queen.

Clara is, of course, the one female role of substantial character in The Nutcracker, there is room for only one, so everyone else is dancing either Drosselmeyer's dolls or the national dances in the Prince's confectionery kingdom.

Here there was much to enjoy from the youngsters. Svetlana Bekk doubled as the girl doll and a mirlito, Evgeniy Korsakov as the Harlequin Doll and another Mirlton, and the delightfully springy Aleksandr Yakolev as the Arab doll then the livelier half of the Chinese Dance.

But it's a hands-down victory for the biscuit-taker in the SPBT's yellow and pink Act 2 divertissements. Casting a single harem dancer for Tchaikowsky's sultrily alluring Arabic (or Coffee) Dance guarantees the stage and the longest national dance to herself.

It was the coolly enticing 31-year-old Anastasia Khabarova, who we may see next week in this SPBT visit as she also dances Sleeping Beauty's Fairy Of Goodness And Light.

In the Nutcracker male lead, the prince, we found not the SPBT's first-choice young hero, Dimitri Akulinin, nor the 39-year-old Andrei Stelmakhov, nor relative newcomer, lead soloist Vladimir Iznov. Instead, soloist Dmitry Lysenko got his chance and his compact figure and warmth towards Clara was a winning contrast to the stiffness of some others who have gone before him.

Whether he will play Prince Desiree in Sleeping Beauty is something to await, although Akulinin was "rested" (and masked) in The Nutcracker as the quickly despatched Mouse King, and also there is listed a new principal with this tour called Yuri Kovalev.

Tchaikowsky's Sleeping Beauty, of his three masterpiece ballet scores, has emerged as the king of the three, just as he himself believed. It stands alone without the dancing – as Valery Gergiev has shown in two decades on tour with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra ,in and also outside of St Petersburg.

And he did again at this year in London, when it electrifyingly comprised his entire BBC Prom concert. Its extra colour and pace out-glories Swan Lake, which remains probably the darkest and most symphonic of all ballet scores.

Sleeping Beauty is to come on Monday and Tuesday and by then I hope that the St Petersburg Ballet Orchestra will have emerged from penury and be ready to do the music justice.

Because Boxing Day at the ballet this year caught the band out. They were at times an embarrassment. They had numerous moments out of sync and even out of tune. The violins often sounded feeble, barely any section escaped a mishap somewhere, and few appeared ready to leap out of the blocks into the rigours of the Prologue and Act 1.

Maybe there was a spot of illness present, but conductor Vadim Nikitin never got them fully on track and his smiles at the curtain call concealed relief at having dragged everybody over the finishing line.

Perhaps the company Christmas Day party had knackered them.

Next year, to make sure, maybe Maestro Nikitin will need to insist the entire orchestra do class in the morning before the December 26 performance.

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