Kenneth Macmillan Triple Bill, Royal Opera House, London, **

To put Kenneth MacMillan's first creation for the Royal Ballet and his last on a triple bill with one typical intervening work seemed a neat idea. But in practice it makes a depressing evening.

Danses concertantes, created in 1955 as he began his career, is the redeeming element. To Stravinsky's score, attractively jaunty and quirky (even if too stolidly played this time under Richard Bernas's direction), MacMillan was inspired by his amazing original cast – every one of them ideal for the roles – to invent unexpected, humorous, spiky patterns of dance.

The ballet introduced a uniquely gifted young designer, too: Nicholas Georgiadis, who similarly matched the music's individuality with his unusual shapes, decorations and colours. Subsequent new designs, by Georgiadis and others, were never as good, and it is brilliant to have something quite close to the original restored here. But the solo women's skirts need correcting – too long and too symmetrical. And brighter lighting wouldn't hurt.

The revival has two casts, and the second night was much the better. Tamara Rojo brought an angular fluency to the ballerina's role that had been missing before, and she also achieves an alluring sense of mystery in the strange section where her thumbs and first fingers turn into masks. Ricardo Cervera doesn't quite equal the first night's Johan Kobborg for virtuosity as the solo man, but he shows more of the intended tough-guy attack, and managed the star-pattern end of his main solo better. José Martin, Jane Burn and Laura Morera likewise make the better trio for the other featured parts.

So far, so good, but now things take a serious turn for the worse. The two remaining ballets are both lugubriously miserable in content: a poor choice for juxtaposition. Also, they both have elaborate, overpowering sets that apparently necessitate interminable intermissions: whatever became of the rebuilt theatre's vaunted facility for quick changes?

MacMillan's last ballet, The Judas Tree, is just plain nasty. Sex and violence are all very well, but this dose, all 35 minutes of it, is simply pointless. What make it even more objectionable are the repeated but never justified religious references, identifying a whore, who is gang-raped and apparently murdered, with the Mother of God. Mara Galeazzi doesn't get anywhere with that role, which undermines Irek Mukhamedov's intense performance as the foreman. Isabel McMeekan is nearer the mark in the finesse of her playing opposite the hard-working Jonathan Cope.

Gloria is one of MacMillan's ballets to choral music, so it's a pity that the singers have been moved from their former post adjoining the proscenium arch down to pit level, where they don't come over so well.

The words that Poulenc set from the Catholic Mass make a sarcastic accompaniment to the choreographer's perhaps too abstract representation of ghosts from the First World War. To make their point, the dances certainly need more meaningful performance than they are getting. When people applaud during the action, in spite of a programme note asking that they don't, you know that the dramatic intentions are not getting across.

To 14 May (020-7304 4000)