Daria Pavlenko was a ravishing Nikiya, at first reserved and then, with the appearance of Leonid Sarafanov as Solor, she became alive with a gorgeous, meltingly languorous style…..

Daria Pavlenko, dancing Odette-Odile, was far and away the best thing about the three performances I saw (all three casts) of the Swan Lake the Kirov Ballet brought to Kennedy Center. She has, beside formidable technique, the magisterial authority of a ballerina. This is rooted in the ability to draw the audience into an imaginary universe of which she is the center.

Daria Pavlenko was a supremely tragic Odette. Rarely lifting her eyes, she danced under a veil of melancholy. She has a singularly pliant spine -- a hallmark of the Russian style -- and in her use of it one saw a series of resonant images.

The viperlike Snow Queen -- performed Tuesday by Daria Pavlenko -- etched herself into memory because as she danced, she made clear just what kind of a creature she was, and her razored angles and ferocity drew me into her world. I can say this about few other moments in the ballet.

With Darcey Bussell on maternity leave, the Royal Ballet has taken the excellent decision to invite Daria Pavlenko from the Kirov Ballet to replace her in La Bayade`re. What Pavlenko brings to the role of Nikiya is entire understanding. La Bayadère is in her bones, its manner as much part of her identity as MacMillan's choreography is the grain in Bussell's art.

Pavlenko is a beauty, with a face of Art Deco exoticism, as if drawn by Erté. Though offstage she’s small as a mosquito, onstage she reads tall and has an endless line that could have come as well from Erté’s pen. But she doesn’t overplay that line. Pavlenko is one disciplined dancer, and she brings her own hushed momentum to the stage, an awesome technique that is flush with dignity, and music. Her Diamonds was all about hearing—the horns in the distance, the woodwinds rising, her own beating heart. She gave us plunges of emotion in steps wholly performed. Her fourth positions on stork points — huge and deeply crossed — were displays of majestic chiaroscuro. Her sous-sus, tight as a top, were star bright and absolutely still (“at the still point, there the dance is”). And her arabesque—a gleam, a comet’s tail. In everything Pavlenko did she was thrilling. But this, after all, is what a ballerina must be.

On Thursday, 23-year-old Daria Pavlenko, a second soloist, gave a more satisfying interpretation, less extreme and more mystical. Her footwork was absolutely silent, and her unsupported balances were so serene that she made her cavalier wait before placing her hand on his. She signals a promising, poetic future for the company.