For anyone wondering, Sarah left a bit of herself in the Mermaid role this past week. She has black & blue knuckles on both hands, a shiner over one eye, whiplash, a busted lip, scraped knees & elbows and too many bruises to count. Her claim to fame, however, comes from the stage crew. She knocked two fairly burly crew members around who were holding the door closed in the Act II opening scene, she punched three holes in the plywood, and she left a pool of blood on the floor in the final scene, complements of the busted lip. The crew now gives Sarah a wide berth in the hallways of the Opera House.

I saw Saturday's matinee, and I have to say I was stunned at the ferocity of her performance. I said to someone afterwards that I was sorry for the mermaid, but I was worried about Sarah. During the curtain calls, I thought she looked exhausted; not surprising. Superb performance, but tell her to be careful; her fans need her in one piece!

Seven principals and a mixed corps of eight animate Zanella's style, marked by twisting torsos and florid arm gestures. In her opening solo, Sofiane Sylve, magnificent in her own way, looks like a sister of the Novice in Jerome Robbins' "The Cage." She yields to three duets. These are fervid, shifting balance-of-power affairs, rendered by Lorena Feijoo and Pascal Molat, followed by Frances Chung and Gennadi Nedvigin. Only the final pairing, matching Vitor Luiz with Katita Waldo (in her last creation before her retirement this month and as charismatic as ever), stands out.

Yet Zanella shows shadowy figures upstage, an ominous Black Swan-like figure dancing in front (Elana Altman was brilliant at the Saturday matinee), followed by pas de deux by three different couples.

These elements don’t seem to relate to the story, which ends with Anne Marie Legenstein's mysterious, affecting scenic design of falling leaves and diminishing light in the finale.

It is possible to forget the original and simply embrace the music and great performances, including a true star turn by Yuan Yuan Tan.

A resident choreographer earns his keep when he feeds the audience what it wants and needs, brings out qualities in the dancers only someone intimately familiar with them can, and stretches his own talents in the bargain. Yuri Possokhov's new "Classical Symphony" at San Francisco Ballet does all this and more: It makes you smile, nonstop. This caper of stretched-to-the-extreme classical technique forms the zippy centerpiece of a short and spirited seventh repertory program likely to delight ballet diehards and newcomers in equal measure.

In “Classical Symphony,” Maria Kochetkova and Hansuke Yamamoto led 12 dancers in bringing Prokofiev’s familiar score to life, movement by movement, phrase by phrase.

It's unusual for Possokhov to be so literal – his other works are more imaginative and surprising – but the piece works fine. Yamamoto's sleek, dashing performance is a personal best, and Chung and Long were especially impressive.

On the same day that Garen Scribner was taking the stage as the Sea Witch in recently closed "The Little Mermaid," he spent four hours in rehearsals that had nothing to do with the Sea Witch or "The Little Mermaid."

In-between, Scribner needed a way to forget the roles he was rehearsing and remember the role he would be performing that night in the War Memorial Opera House. That's what his 45-minute stop in the weight room is for.

Most every artist has a routine or ritual before performing, and often these activities involve fitness. In an occasional series, The Chronicle will visit the places they go and the things they do that are not seen by people in the audience. Where Scribner goes is an overheated ante room, 8 feet wide and 25 feet long, on the third floor of the Ballet building.

San Francisco Ballet performing Jerome Robbins' The Concert (Or, The Perils of Everybody) may be one of the most enjoyable dance pieces ever. It isn't traditional in the ballet sense: there's no giant pas de deux or repetitive steps to the right, left, and right again. But it's a well made ballet that conveys mood with a timeless feel, large heart, and overwhelmingly delicious humor.