AT 11pm on Saturday, Sergei Polunin, the youngest ever principal dancer at the Royal Ballet, was still dancing on stage in Norway, and so too were Leanne Benjamin and Thomas Whitehead.

By 6am on Sunday, they were on a flight out of Copenhagen, bound for Manchester, from where they would be taken by taxi to the Grand Opera House in York.

All because they were determined to take part in the rehearsals and performance for A Summer Gala Evening of Dance and Song in aid of the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School: the fund-raising event run every two years by producer Marguerite Porter, former Royal Ballet principal ballet and director of the summer school since the 2005, the year she first held a gala in York.

Marguerite has a remarkably inspirational, galvanising effect, bringing together disparate stellar name and blossoming talent for a programme that hit a new peak on Sunday.

Polunin’s bravura terpsichorean leaps and showboating spins in each half were breathtaking, while Benjamin and Whitehead’s brace of pas de deux combined dazzling technique with physical chemistry, especially so in the modern piece, Furious Angels, choreographed by Ludovic Ondiviela.

The night had opened with Richard Clifford’s sweetly sung rendition of Noel Coward’s There’s A Younger Generation, that generation duly joining him on stage in the form of 50 pupils from this month’s summer school.

The “older” generation were not to be outdone: enter masters of ceremonies Sir Anthony Dowell and Sir Derek Jacobi, or Sir Ant and Sir Dek as they are known. Charming and dapper, they hosted the event with grace and no little wit.

These gala nights work so well for their surprises as much their dancing delights. Who knew, for example, that the esteemed actress Imelda Staunton had such a lovely singing voice, first revealed in an a cappella Why Walk When You Can Fly? and later in a version of You Are My Sunshine that went from blue to sing-along.

Gardener, presenter and author Alan Titchmarsh returned home to Yorkshire from his missionary work down south to tap into his other life as a music-hall singer and raconteur. Helen Crawford’s ribbon routine from La Fille Mal Gardée was the night’s prettiest dancing before the first half ended with Samantha Bond and Wayne Sleep’s clowning song-and-dance double act to Irving Berlin’s We’re A Couple Of Swells.

Marguerite Porter showed no signs of her recent cartilage injury, turning back the clock so elegantly in a beautiful pas de deux with Christopher Tudor to the accompaniment of Alexander Hanson’s rendition of Cole Porter’s Night And Day.

Injury, however, did prevent Brandon Lawrence from dancing When The Times Come, but thankfully a film of his rehearsal before he fractured his foot revealed why his time is soon to come with the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

The second half piled up further gems, especially the thrilling dancing of Brazilian Junor Souza from the English National Ballet in tandem with Shiori Kase, and the panache and humorous friction of Ballet Boyz’ Michael Nunn and William Trevitt’s Yumba vs Nonino.

What better way to finish than the entire cast basking in the applause that accompanied Puttin’ On The Ritz. Roll on 2013.