Last year Michael Corder created a new, full-length version of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen for English National Ballet. The choreographer's experiments with the Danish storyteller now continue at Birmingham Royal Ballet with the world premiere of Corder's take on another tale of wintry magic. Le Baiser de la fée (The Fairy's Kiss) is the centrepiece of a triple bill that is the latest instalment in BRB's tribute to Stravinsky. Andersen's allegorical fable is simple but resonant: on a young man's wedding day, the icy fairy queen who kissed him as a baby comes to claim him body and soul. Corder packs the piece with refined and pretty academic steps that test the company's mettle.

Set in a forest glade, the prenuptial celebrations carry a youthful bloom until Jenna Roberts's glamorously chill fairy materialises. Alexander Campbell's upright protagonist can't help but succumb to her powers. As they dance alone, there is a lovely transition from forest to his fiancée's home (the handsome designs are by John F. Macfarlane). More buoyant moves ensue, many centred round Natasha Oughtred's bride-to-be. But, as an unexpectedly moving and magisterial final tableau shows, the fairy's will cannot be denied.

Laced with references to Tchaikovsky, the music is sublime and the dancing more than up to scratch. And yet, that ending apart, why did I feel less of an emotional investment in Corder's ballet than might have been wished?

Perhaps it was because Baiser came on the heels of Michel Fokine's classic Petrushka, set during a street fair in 19th-century St Petersburg. Featuring one of Stravinsky's most glowing scores, BRB's lively version mined much of the piece's humour, pathos and charm. It was plainly Campbell's night: he gave a fine reading of the titular tragic doll.

The evening came to a sorry conclusion with John Cranko's would-be comic Card Game. BRB gave this increasingly frantic, achingly camp mid-1960s concoction its best shot, but you couldn't help feeling that the dancers had been dealt a lame hand.

The Lowry, Salford, tomorrow and Wed.

Box office: 0870 7875788

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