Presenting a contemporary dance show based on Ovid's epic poem Metamorphoses and inspired by Brazilian carnival culture was an ambitious idea - even for a company as talented and imaginative as the Ballet National de Marseille.

Director Frederic Flamand's vision was too obscure at times, despite the aid of a lengthy synopsis in the programme.

Yet the 75-minute show, without an interval, was utterly compelling and enchanting. It presented Flamand's post-modern vision of nine episodes from the Roman poet.

It fused the eye-popping carnival-esque costumes and sets of Brazil's maverick designers the Campana brothers with an ethereal soundtrack, inventive choreography and multi-media effects.

From the first, depicting the beginning of creation and the metamorphoses of stones into bodies, to the last, representing man's eternal quest for immortality, this was a marriage of design and dance.

While the costumes grew more fantastical - with the arrival of the snake-headed gorgon Medusa and Arachne, the girl turned into a spider and condemned to weave for eternity - the dancing grew more inventive.

As well as Arachne in a giant web, Flamand incorporated elements of the Brazilian martial art Capoeira and included a scene danced by women in killer stilettos.

Yet despite his undeniable talent and imagination, the hesitant clapping at the end by an audience unsure of what they had seen, or even whether or not the performance had actually finished, showed that Flamand may, however, have set his sights too high.