LA Traviata should be romantic, St Valentine's Day should be romantic, but just like a blind date, there is no guarantee that two will click as one when paired together.

And so it is with the Leeds debut of Veronica Paeper's La Traviata, a production as anonymous as a Valentine's card. It says Northern Ballet

Theatre on the tin, but this is not the Northern Ballet Theatre of Christopher Gable, and the early verve of present director David Nixon is in danger of dissipating.

This winter's Peter Pan disappointed and now comes a dud. There wasn't the usual pre-show buzz of anticipation, the dress circle was alarmingly quiet

on Press night, and the production looked enervated from the start.

Paeper first staged her interpretation of La Traviata for the Cape Town City Ballet in South Africa, but this show is wholly European, and what we have is Verdi's opera without the singing but with too little to replace it.

Northern Ballet Theatre's trademark is the theatre in the ballet, the storytelling writ large as dance. Alas, Paeper's choreography is classical,

very pretty but devoid of drama, sex, heat and any story takes an eternity to tell. We are back to the bad old days of manically smiling corps de ballet dancers raising glasses and desperately trying to look like they are having a swell time, to no effect.

Only last year, Northern Ballet Theatre gave us an erotic, wicked Paris with fabulous costumes, but Paeper's production is elegant yet bland. Her designer, Peter Cazalet, is similarly undemonstrative: there is nothing distinctive or memorable in his catalogue of good taste.

It is all very lovely, but nothing touches the soul until too late on this sadly soporific night at the ballet. Steven Wheeler's stern, disapproving

Monsieur Germont is an absurd caricature, as stiff as the stick with which he strikes poses in the manner of a grumpy old man in a Laurel & Hardy silent comedy.

It is left to real-life partners Jonathan Ollivier and Desir Samaai, as doomed lovers Armand and Marguerite, to lift the drama with their third and final pas de deux. Only then does the heart begin to beat faster.

La Traviata, Northern Ballet Theatre, Leeds Grand Theatre, until Saturday. Box office: 0113 222 6222.

Updated: 11:05 Monday, February 14, 2005