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Valery Gergiev has often come to the Proms with music from his native land and in 2008 it was the turn of The Sleeping Beauty.

This year the maestro brings his Russian-based ensemble with another of Tchaikovsky's three great ballet scores: Swan Lake, whose lyricism and full-blown drama featured in the recent Oscar-winning Black Swan.

The plot concerns a Prince who is expected to choose a bride from among the guests at a forthcoming ball. Instead he falls in love with Odette, the Swan Queen, whose swan subjects revert to human form between midnight and dawn.

Early spectators were puzzled by the symphonic proportions and sheer depth of feeling Tchaikovsky brings to the tale, qualities brought into fuller focus when all of this glorious score is heard.

There will be one interval