THE Vienna Festival Ballet will be in York for two days, presenting one show tomorrow night and two on Saturday at the Grand Opera House, York.

Swan Lake, the most popular ballet of all, will be staged at 7.30pm tomorrow by Peter Mallek's company with imaginative, glamorous costumes, beautiful sets and music by Tchaikovsky.

The story centres on Prince Siegfried meeting a flock of swans led by a Swan Queen, who is under the evil spell of a magician, Baron Rothbart. The Prince falls in love with the Queen of the Swans and strives to free them all but the magician has a few tricks up his sleeve.

Vienna Festival Ballet's full-length version of Cinderella, choreographed by Sheila Styles, will be performed at 5pm on Saturday. The production features a specially commissioned orchestral score, created solely for the company by Chris Nicholls, with music from some of Rossini’s most famous operas.

This performance tells the familiar fairytale of Cinderella, the young girl who lived with her father and two selfish stepsisters and did all the hard domestic work until the Fairy Godmother granting er wish to go to a grand ball held at the palace by the King. You know the rest.

In between these two ballets, the Vienna Festival Ballet provides an Introduction To Ballet at 2pm on Saturday for eight year olds and upwards and the £20 price includes a ticket for the Cinderella show.

"We would like to offer the chance to children and students who either attend a ballet/dancing school, or simply have an interest in ballet in general, to see how a professional ballet company go about their daily routine," say the company.

The children will learn how dancers prepare themselves and warm their muscles before the performance and they will see how the exercises at the barre build and lead to the displays of virtuosity in the centre.

After the warm-up, an informal chat will explain the origins of ballet and the story of the Cinderella ballet, and costumes and pointe shoes will be shown. The children can then ask questions and even try a shoulder lift or a pirouette with the dancers.

For tickets, phone 0844 871 3024 or book online at atgtickets.com/york