Kirill Karabits's Bournemouth Symphony Prom ended with the Hopak from Khachaturian's ballet Gayane, a moment that seemed awash with symbolic resonances, intentional or otherwise. The concert marked the start of Karabits's tenure as the BSO's principal conductor, and the Hopak is the national dance of his native Ukraine. It had been quite an evening. Karabits, a charmer, has that rare ability to be both fastidious and thrilling. At the start, the audience were restless, and sounded as if they were in the throes of a bronchitis epidemic. By the end, an attentive, enraptured crowd were roaring him on.

He kicked off with The Fairy's Kiss, Stravinsky's disturbing 1928 ballet about a young man kissed as a baby by a fairy, who then returns to claim him as her lover when he is an adult. The score deconstructs and recomposes songs by Stravinsky's idol, Tchaikovsky, in ways that are at once frighteningly austere and sensual. There were some imperfections. Karabits's control was superb, though the deceleration to the final moments of stasis could have been more agonisingly protracted. It's hard on the players, and the BSO brass were pushed, on occasion, to their limits.

Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto came after the interval. Julian Rachlin was the soloist in a performance notable for its ruminative introversion as well as its bravura. The slow movement was haunting; elsewhere, there were some wayward speeds.

That victorious Hopak, meanwhile, was prefaced by a clutch of excerpts from Khachaturian's Spartacus, done with a heart-on-sleeve glamour that took everyone's breath away. This evening has made Karabits something of a star. More to the point, it confirms what a fine conductor he is.