The Mikhailovsky Theatre (formerly the Maly) is St Petersburg’s other great ballet and opera institution, with roots going back to 1833 and a history of artists that includes Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Balanchine. These days it enjoys the patronage of the Russian businessman Vladimir Kekhman, who not only paid to renovate the theatre (more than £12 million) but also to produce its splashy new Spartacus.

Actually, to call this epic gladiator ballet splashy is to sell it well short. It’s overwhelming. With a price tag of £1.8 million and a cast of 200 (150 dancers and a 50-strong chorus), this is Spartacus as a massive Bollywood extravaganza. George Kovtun, who choreographed it, has clearly been influenced by Yuri Grigorovich’s beefy Soviet staging (for years the Bolshoi’s calling card abroad), but Kovtun’s clamorous remake offers even more blunt force trauma. His favourite motif is testosterone on the move (gladiators and centurions, swords and shields flying); his favourite vocabulary is brazenly acrobatic (the lifts are scary!) and low on inspiration – vulgarity meets Viagra.

As for the storytelling, it’s wildly unbalanced, with too much attention paid to Crassus, our villain, and not enough to Spartacus, our hero. And the plot is more or less abandoned in a dreary and overlong second act that seems to think it’s a series of lurid divertissements rather than a dramatic ballet. But Act I is an astonishing theatrical steamroller, its finale of rebellious slaves crashing into the interval like a herd of marauding rugby players. The sets are dark and looming, the tacky costumes evocative of a bad Ancient Roman costume party. The Mikhailovsky’s 80-strong orchestra, under Karen Durgarian’s zealous conducting, plays Khachaturian with staggering loudness.

Denis Matvienko is terrific as Spartacus, a fearless freedom-fighter with a true heart and a bold heroic sweep to his dancing that energises the entire evening and makes sense of the nonsense. As Crassus, Marat Shemiunov exudes patrician vanity, though his acting is hopelessly melodramatic. Irina Perren is given short shrift as Spartacus’s beloved Valeria but still shines tenderly. And Anastasia Matvienko has the most fun as Crassus’s courtesan girlfriend, shooting her legs into the air in a fabulous display of hussy extensions. The production may display more money than sense, but if it’s spectacle you want it can’t be beat.

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