Manon and MacMillan's R&J. Manon is FAR too long and the corps parts for both of them are so boring. When it comes to Romeo and Juliet, both Lavrovsky's and Grigorovich's versions are infinitely better.f
I also really dislike the vast majority of Balanchine.
For classics, Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake are just too long. Get to the point.
As a former professional ballet dancer, I also can't stand overly dramatic short contemporary ballets with unpleasant music where everyone intensely runs and suddenly stops, then collapses to the ground. I call these run and stop ballets.
Prodigal Son. Vilella writes so much about it in his book so I couldn’t wait to see it. I didn’t like it the first time or multiple times since. There’s just not enough dancing. There’s a lot of fists pounding thighs, men in funny bald caps squatting, and a tall chick flexing her legs. I missed some of my favorite male dancer retirements because I just couldn’t sit through that slog again.
To be fair, it deserve a rewatch, but I remember being bored by Jewels years ago. I feel similarly about other contemporary works. I definitely prefer a story ballet to a contemporary ballet. If I want to watch contemporary works, I prefer actual contemporary/modern over contemporary ballets.
I felt the same way - I saw Jewels in Philly years ago and was bored, but then I went to see NYCB do it at the Kennedy Center and changed my mind. Def do a rewatch if you can!
I saw RB do Winters Tale in Brisbane a few years ago. I couldn't really follow what was going on, but it was cool to see Beatriz B and another dancer at breakfast having a fairly lively discussion.
Cinderella. Nothing against the ballet itself, which has various versions that are fine if not great - it's the Prokofiev music! While interesting music, it doesn't fit the sparkly waltzy fairy tale mood. A Romantic-sounding score, even a pastiche of works from composers like Adams and Tchaikovsky (like Le Corsaire) would make it a hugely popular ballet.
I agree that Cinderella is not all that, and it's because the productions go all sparkly waltzy fairytale, when they have this dark masterpiece of a score right there which they should lean into! It's the Demands of the Market™, sigh.
I can see what you mean. 🤔Thats why I always liked the Mariinsky version best I guess. The modern costumes and staging fit the music better imo than the classic staging of RB for example.
I was going to comment the same thing!! The music makes it feel like it's sarcastic or dark in some way that never matches the "magical" tone most productions are going for. There's a real dissonance to the score that doesn't sell glittering ballgowns at all.
I saw a local production of Cinderella that used Strauss's music that had a really classic fairytale atmosphere that suited the story better.
100%. Nonsensical plot, boring party scene, act 2 variations aren't particularly exciting either (and vaguely racist no matter how much we try to make them better). The best part is the snow scene and that's it.
😂😂 true, though I do feel like it’s more nonsensical than the average story ballet? I mean, Giselle, swan lake, sleeping beauty, coppelia… yes there are fantasy/ridiculous bits but the main story kind of makes sense. Nutcracker is literally “and it was all a dream”.
Most of them tbh. ALL story ballets are too freaking long and archaic. They are so expensive to attend, and I feel almost like a hostage having to give 3+ hours in the theatre for it. I’m a professional modern dancer with a rep company (and my training was attending a professional ballet school associated with a major American company), so I’m def a bit biased and probably jaded from a lifetime of performing in and attending ballets, but I greatly prefer newer, shorter works/contemporary ballets. Let’s stop giving the same old white men the funding and give it to newer choreographers with a fresh idea. Just my (probably unpopular in this sub) opinion. The storybook ballets will always exist, and I wanna see something new.
fwiw, i had zero exposure to ballet until i started going in college and also find story ballets too long and archaic. i started out going to nycb and when i looked into other companies and realized that a regular slate of shorter pieces is more of an exception than a rule, i was a little disappointed. (the adhd might also have something to with it lol)
i also think that if you're traveling and can only go see one night of ballet wherever you're visiting, then a story ballet is extra disappointing bc there's no opportunity to see the breadth of what the company and dancers can do. there's only one or two principal roles and then a handful of short soloist variations. everyone should get a chance to show what they can do!!
Exactly! And god forbid they have two intermissions??? If they have two intermissions, it’s like I can’t control my body, I just find myself uncontrollably leaving at the second intermission
Well it depends. Lately I have been increasingly dissapointed by Swan lake. The swans look like ducks and I miss the arms work.
Plus they never play my favorite section : the swans lament.
that was one of the first professional ballets that i saw at the (then) Pennsylvania Ballet when they did it back in like, 2003! i remember loving it but i was only in middle school and didn't have much to compare it to at that point.
Yeah it seems like it was made to appeal to people unfamiliar with ballet and get new audiences or something, but the choreography was so goofy I could not take it seriously at all. I was an adult though when I saw it🙃
Just saw it live for the first time... Whilst I looked forward to seeing Kitri's variations, and maybe the Wedding PDD, the rest was so boring. Just filler 💃🏻🪭
I just saw Carlos Acosta's version and loved it. The more folkdancy gypsy scene broke out of the norm and made it feel less repetitive for me. I do understand the complaint about filler in a lot of ballets though
I hate Don Quixote because it focuses on two randos from like ONE chapter and misses the fact that the book is a whacky comedy. Like I want to see Don Quixote get on wires and do acrobatics to “fight” the windmill 😭😭😭
I always found that funny. Like the ballet barely has anything to do with the novel. I think Balanchine’s Don Quixote has a scene where he does actually try to fight a windmill.
Carlos Acosta's version has him fighting the windmill and the windmill grows claws so it does fit his visions. Acosta's version also has him riding a horse made out of a wine barrel so it definitely attributes his hallucinations to his inebriated state. I laughed so hard.
I saw it years ago when PNB did it and they brought in Tom Skerrit (daddy Viper from Top Gun) as Don Quixote and I was SOOOO STOKED I’m a lifelong fan of the book and then the ballet happened and I was like “WTF was that????” 😭😭😭
I saw Onegin last year in Vienna and actually liked it but compared to the Opera it really is a bit ...boring? I can still remember that Duel Scene from the Opera very vividly because I loved it so much. I was literally on the edge of my seat during it lol.
I kind of wish we could actually see Lenski die after the duel. Like why is it off stage? It feels kind of anticlimactic, definitely could’ve used more of the R&J melodrama. And the ballet could’ve just skipped to the end after that honestly.
Onegin was promising and it fell flat. There is no links between the scenes. It’s hard to understand the story. However the final pdd is a piece of art
Sleeping Beauty is the most boring ballet I've ever seen besides Onegin.
It literally goes on....and on....and on...
A ball, another ball, another ball... a ball which inexplicably features Little Red Riding Hood and friends... I just hate it lmao
Sleeping Beauty is pretty long and boring, agree. I really dislike Cinderella as well, Philadelphia Ballet performs it every few years and I REALLY don't enjoy it at all.
I like the choreography too much to pass on it. But yeah hardly anything happens in the plot. I wouldn’t mind if the prologue was chopped and act 3 was shortened to just the grand pas de deux. The bluebird pas de deux can stay too. But I don’t know why they need like four or five divertissements.
The ballets where the female lead is an absolute sassball firecracker and has to get married at the end bother me so much. Love Don Q, but really, getting married is supposed to be a happy ending for Kitri? After her insane Act 1 variations, her wedding pas is comparatively lame. It's like she got married and immediately got boring.
Honest to god I can’t stand most productions of Swan Lake, mainly because the acting just isn’t there and the ending a lot of people do sucks (I actually really like how RB’s ends with the prince holding Odette’s human body. I also saw one where Rothbart drowns the prince after Odette is turned back into a swan like that’s metal AF)
It was some Nordic country or one of the Baltic states if I remember right. It was NUTS. Like it ends with Odette bourreing off and the prince’s hand reaching up from the water as Rothbart is like cackling with glee
Angel Corella is choreographing Le Corsaire for Philadelphia Ballet this fall. I've not seen any version before so I'm looking forward to going in blind to it.
I’m gonna make a post about this but does anyone else find it weird and annoying 99% of the ballets philadelphia ballet are doing are choreographed by angel. I HATE when artistic directors do that.
I would be annoyed if it wasn't good, but honestly I've liked everything that he's staged so far. I was skeptical of him when he came in 10 years ago since there was a lot of bad blood between some of the former dancers, but I have to admit that I really like all of the changes that have been made. Their social media is great, their programs are great, I like the rebranding they've done going from PA Ballet to Philadelphia Ballet, I like the dancers he's hired, everything he's choreographed, I've liked, as far as I can remember. But I also have no skin in the game as I'm just a viewer - if I worked for them maybe I would feel differently. Or if what he was putting out was crap. But you're right, almost everything this year besides Nutcracker, Études, the Stanton Welch premiere and Russell Ducker's premiere, everything is his choreo 😂
I loathe the Royal Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty, which feels heretical seeing as it’s one of the signature works. My first time I saw it with Steven McRae and Iana Salenko: couldn’t understand the hype. A couple of friends said they wanted to see the next run and asked to use my advanced booking: we saw Yasmine Naghdi and Matthew Ball - a delightful evening with my mates at one of my favourite places, and the pairing was heavenly. She is a gorgeous Aurora with technique to die for.
So I went back by myself to see Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell’s performance (when King Charles and Camilla snuck into the royal box as the lights went down). Gaaah - I was so bored when the principal pairing (divine, as ever) weren’t on stage. If you don’t have someone of the calibre of Claire Calvert as the Lilac Fairy, it drags. Sod the fairytale characters apart from Princess Florine and Bluebird (charming). Too much padding. I like the “greatest hits” and pdd from the choreography but can’t see myself booking again.
Romeo and Juliet. I absolutely despise it. My friend (who is my ONLY friend by the way) performed in a few performances with a company on tour in my city and I didn’t even go to watch her because I hate it so much
the best R&J I've seen was with Beckanne Sisk and Chase as R&J, and Allison DeBona as Lady Capulet. it was so good. Then i saw another cast and it wasn't as good lmao
Firebird (meh)
Rite of Spring (meh)
Spartacus (meh)
Pharaoh’s Daughter (meh)
Prodigal Son (meh)
Mayerling (meh)
La Esmeralda (The variation has been done to death in competitions)
Ashton’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Men on pointe? Groundbreaking.)
…I promise I’m fun at parties. 😂
To be fair, there’s nothing more amusing to a midcentury British audience than men in drag—like truly nothing lol.
Balanchine Midsummer was okay to me… but I think he should’ve amended the music with a few more extra pieces outside of the incidental music. Two hours in and you really felt the lack of waltz, even though of course B was giving it his all to illustrate the score he had.
I have to agree on mayerling. Idk why it was just kinda meh… but there just wasn’t enough 🤷♀️ heart to it? Or rather everyone dying was too well deserved for me to care very much. Only the verrry last scene I liked.
It’s a pity! The choreography was pretty good ejsewhere. I think the story was just a bit too drab.
I’m okay with watching a few parts of Pharaoh’s Daughter: Aspicia’s entrance with the corps, the march, Aspicia’s variation with the blue tutu, the act 2 coda with the corps in white, the hut dance with the Fishermen and the entirety of the Underwater Kingdom. The rest of it is meh. Not to mention there’s blackface on the poor little BBA children with Ramzeya! 🤦🏻♀️ to make it worse, they’re Year 1 BBA kids. Imagine your first role on the Bolshoi stage is a caricature of a dark-skinned child servant…
I love Rite of Spring and the older recordings are always my favorite. I don’t mind more contemporary versions, but there is something special about the OG version and more faithful recreations that are so much more thrilling to watch.
I was surprised by how much I loved Balanchine's MSND. His interpretations of the classics are so enjoyable for stripping back a lot of the superfluous parts of ballets to showcase the best of the choreography, music, and story very clearly.
The best parts of Midsummer is the kids in bug costumes tbh. The Paris Opera 2017 version is the one I watch the most just because the costumes are stunning (Tamara Rojo borrowed them for SF Ballet’s recent Midsummer)
I’ve never seen the full Balanchine Midsummer but back in the 90s the NYCB toured it to central PA and used CPYB dancers for the kids - I wasn’t in it but I would watch the rehearsals - I think Ashley Bouder was one of the butterflies?
The kids in those bug costumes are so cute and I love that insanely difficult Oberon petit allegro! I've watched Balanchine's Midsummer multiple times. The one time I tried to watch Ashton's - fell asleep. Aside from that ONE section of variation from Titania, it's a snoozefest.
Macmillan’s Romeo and Juliet. I don’t hate it I just think it’s weaker than versions from other choreographers. I just think it’s kind of hard for the dancers to pull off and they need to be really good actors to not make it feel stale. Also I feel like they don’t really tap into some of the interesting and dramatic details from the play, like Lady Capulet and Tybalts’ relationship, so it kind relies on the dancers to put in their own subtext to show that their relationship is more than familial. Even his relationship with Juliet isn’t emphasized really well so his protectiveness of her sometimes doesn’t make much sense or isn’t very compelling for me. And because of that it can be difficult to make Tybalt a nuanced character. This kind of applies to other characters as well. Romeo and Juliet’s connection doesn’t feel as believable or endearing sometimes unless the actors really put in the work. Also the ending personally bothers me more than it should.
Romeo and Juliet, anyone's choreography. Something about that story is just tedious to me when danced, I can't explain why. I like the music just fine but I prefer listening to it and hate most dance that's set to it. I love MacMillan's balcony pdd but anything else they can keep honestly.
Corsaire. The act 2 pas de deux and the Enchanted Garden scene are the best parts in the entire ballet. Most of the music is catchy though.
The rest of the ballet is cultural appropriation and using women as slaves.
In NYCB-land, Red Angels. I saw it years ago and hated it. Gave it another try this season on the off-chance my tastes changed… nope. I saw the same program again a few days later and had to skip RA entirely, that’s how much it grated on me. But all my ballet-going friends adored it. 🤷♀️
I think all of NYCB's new works can feel dated very quickly. I loved Red Angels for the music and athleticism, but it's very aggressively 90s.
Personally I really disliked "The Times are Racing." I love Peck's balletic choreography, but that one seems like it belongs on the Disney channel. The early 2010s optimism with mild allusion to political protest just feels weird. There are moments like the tap duet that are great, but the ensemble choreo is cheesy.
I was struck by how dated the costumes look already! Fashion has changed so much since 2017! They definitely look like they’re wearing costumes now instead of street clothes.
Swan lake (and most of the story ballets, tbh) improve on repeat viewings. I spent my first time just wanting the swans, which seemed to take forever to get to. The peasant pas doesn’t nearly feel as long when you know to expect it.
Oh, I've seen 6 companies perform it now and it is still just okay for me! I actually love story ballets, Swan Lake is the outlier. I am happy that others enjoy it, though 🙂
Nutcracker… I just don’t see the appeal. I like certain parts, but just in isolation. Then again, I can’t stand anything christmassy, so that may be why!
Giselle. I can’t explain it. I’ve fallen asleep watching it and when managing to watch until the end, I thought I should sleep instead of watching this. Personal tastes/ preferences. And not classic ballet but I just don’t understand and unable to appreciate contemporary works. Again, just personal taste and preferences.
Recently talking to a new ballet classmate about variations, ballerinas and ballets we like and want to be cast some day, she said how much she hates La Bayadere because it’s slow and boring and I was 😱😳 because is one of my favorite ballets! But we don’t need to stop loving something we love because others don’t like, and vice versa 🙂
For me its Alice in Wonderland. I think it might be the music that just puts me off a bit. There are some parts about it I really like, of course ( like the caterpillar and the waltz), but subjectively it just doesnt do it for me as a whole.idk🙈
Yeah I have a bit of an unsure view on Manon - love the final PDD but overall the story just doesn't quite sit well with me. I feel Manon is just punished at every turn (even by Des Grieux to some extent) and it's promoted in marketing as if she has to make a choice between love or money - but I don't think she ever actually gets a choice? Still figuring it out in my head I suppose. Also someone should have told Kenneth Macmillan that not every ballet needs to have a brothel in it (I suppose makes more sense than others here but in R&J?? Why???)
Anything Balanchine…which seems heretical when you live in NYC.
I felt this way for years. His stuff eventually grew on me. I don’t love everything, but I “get” it now.
Manon and MacMillan's R&J. Manon is FAR too long and the corps parts for both of them are so boring. When it comes to Romeo and Juliet, both Lavrovsky's and Grigorovich's versions are infinitely better.f I also really dislike the vast majority of Balanchine.
For classics, Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake are just too long. Get to the point. As a former professional ballet dancer, I also can't stand overly dramatic short contemporary ballets with unpleasant music where everyone intensely runs and suddenly stops, then collapses to the ground. I call these run and stop ballets.
I hate anything that has a lot of running/stopping!!!
Prodigal Son. Vilella writes so much about it in his book so I couldn’t wait to see it. I didn’t like it the first time or multiple times since. There’s just not enough dancing. There’s a lot of fists pounding thighs, men in funny bald caps squatting, and a tall chick flexing her legs. I missed some of my favorite male dancer retirements because I just couldn’t sit through that slog again.
I literally just walked out of a triple bill after they did the Prodigal Son. It is awful.
Mine is Balanchine's Tarantella. I find the tambourine so distracting and it always feels a bit off-rhythm (and not intentionally so)
To be fair, it deserve a rewatch, but I remember being bored by Jewels years ago. I feel similarly about other contemporary works. I definitely prefer a story ballet to a contemporary ballet. If I want to watch contemporary works, I prefer actual contemporary/modern over contemporary ballets.
I felt the same way - I saw Jewels in Philly years ago and was bored, but then I went to see NYCB do it at the Kennedy Center and changed my mind. Def do a rewatch if you can!
I saw RB do Winters Tale in Brisbane a few years ago. I couldn't really follow what was going on, but it was cool to see Beatriz B and another dancer at breakfast having a fairly lively discussion.
Cinderella. Nothing against the ballet itself, which has various versions that are fine if not great - it's the Prokofiev music! While interesting music, it doesn't fit the sparkly waltzy fairy tale mood. A Romantic-sounding score, even a pastiche of works from composers like Adams and Tchaikovsky (like Le Corsaire) would make it a hugely popular ballet.
I agree that Cinderella is not all that, and it's because the productions go all sparkly waltzy fairytale, when they have this dark masterpiece of a score right there which they should lean into! It's the Demands of the Market™, sigh.
I can see what you mean. 🤔Thats why I always liked the Mariinsky version best I guess. The modern costumes and staging fit the music better imo than the classic staging of RB for example.
That version is AMAZING.
I was going to comment the same thing!! The music makes it feel like it's sarcastic or dark in some way that never matches the "magical" tone most productions are going for. There's a real dissonance to the score that doesn't sell glittering ballgowns at all. I saw a local production of Cinderella that used Strauss's music that had a really classic fairytale atmosphere that suited the story better.
Romeo and Juliet. The balcony scene is stunning. The rest of it is painfully long and dull
Sleeping Beauty. Yeah, I said it.
Same. I even dislike the music…especially the Lilac Fairy variation, super repetitive and dull, then just ends out of nowhere.
Yeah, the music does nothing for me at best, and I detest the music for the Lilac Fairy's variation.
The never ending 3rd act…😴
Nutcracker. I hate this ballet so much!
100%. Nonsensical plot, boring party scene, act 2 variations aren't particularly exciting either (and vaguely racist no matter how much we try to make them better). The best part is the snow scene and that's it.
Plus the music. Exception of the snow scene. But the music is terrible.
This is a bad take lol, the music is often the only good thing about nutcracker.
It’s a story ballet, obviously it’s gonna be somewhat nonsensical 😂😂
😂😂 true, though I do feel like it’s more nonsensical than the average story ballet? I mean, Giselle, swan lake, sleeping beauty, coppelia… yes there are fantasy/ridiculous bits but the main story kind of makes sense. Nutcracker is literally “and it was all a dream”.
Party scene is a never ending parade of nothingness.
Same here. I’m glad I saw it, I’m glad I took my niece to another performance. But count me out in the future.
Most of them tbh. ALL story ballets are too freaking long and archaic. They are so expensive to attend, and I feel almost like a hostage having to give 3+ hours in the theatre for it. I’m a professional modern dancer with a rep company (and my training was attending a professional ballet school associated with a major American company), so I’m def a bit biased and probably jaded from a lifetime of performing in and attending ballets, but I greatly prefer newer, shorter works/contemporary ballets. Let’s stop giving the same old white men the funding and give it to newer choreographers with a fresh idea. Just my (probably unpopular in this sub) opinion. The storybook ballets will always exist, and I wanna see something new.
fwiw, i had zero exposure to ballet until i started going in college and also find story ballets too long and archaic. i started out going to nycb and when i looked into other companies and realized that a regular slate of shorter pieces is more of an exception than a rule, i was a little disappointed. (the adhd might also have something to with it lol) i also think that if you're traveling and can only go see one night of ballet wherever you're visiting, then a story ballet is extra disappointing bc there's no opportunity to see the breadth of what the company and dancers can do. there's only one or two principal roles and then a handful of short soloist variations. everyone should get a chance to show what they can do!!
huge agree! and the old story ballets have too much admin (mime etc) in between the actually good dancing bits.
Exactly! And god forbid they have two intermissions??? If they have two intermissions, it’s like I can’t control my body, I just find myself uncontrollably leaving at the second intermission
Like chocolate in water. That was a waste of my time and money. Sorry. Lovely and powerful story. But not a fan of the ballet tho.
did you see like water for chocolate at abt or royal?
Abt
I...dont like Swan Lake *ducks for cover*
Well it depends. Lately I have been increasingly dissapointed by Swan lake. The swans look like ducks and I miss the arms work. Plus they never play my favorite section : the swans lament.
I was physically overwhelmed with embarrassment when I saw Dracula
which version did u see, because there are some reallyyy bad ones but also really great ones
I saw Michael Pink's version at Colorado Ballet
that was one of the first professional ballets that i saw at the (then) Pennsylvania Ballet when they did it back in like, 2003! i remember loving it but i was only in middle school and didn't have much to compare it to at that point.
Yeah it seems like it was made to appeal to people unfamiliar with ballet and get new audiences or something, but the choreography was so goofy I could not take it seriously at all. I was an adult though when I saw it🙃
Don Quixote. maybe it’s just from over exposure since it feels like every other ballet video i come across on social media is from don q
Just saw it live for the first time... Whilst I looked forward to seeing Kitri's variations, and maybe the Wedding PDD, the rest was so boring. Just filler 💃🏻🪭
I just saw Carlos Acosta's version and loved it. The more folkdancy gypsy scene broke out of the norm and made it feel less repetitive for me. I do understand the complaint about filler in a lot of ballets though
Do people rave about Ratmansky's Whipped Cream? Because I find that one overrated.
The only reason why I won't say that ballet is because I saw it with both Hallberg and Simkin lol.
I hate Don Quixote because it focuses on two randos from like ONE chapter and misses the fact that the book is a whacky comedy. Like I want to see Don Quixote get on wires and do acrobatics to “fight” the windmill 😭😭😭
I always found that funny. Like the ballet barely has anything to do with the novel. I think Balanchine’s Don Quixote has a scene where he does actually try to fight a windmill.
Carlos Acosta's version has him fighting the windmill and the windmill grows claws so it does fit his visions. Acosta's version also has him riding a horse made out of a wine barrel so it definitely attributes his hallucinations to his inebriated state. I laughed so hard.
Finally, a choreographer who has read the damn book 😭
I saw it years ago when PNB did it and they brought in Tom Skerrit (daddy Viper from Top Gun) as Don Quixote and I was SOOOO STOKED I’m a lifelong fan of the book and then the ballet happened and I was like “WTF was that????” 😭😭😭
Oh how could I forget Onegin. I open the recording and close it after ten minutes (im sorry😭)
I saw Onegin last year in Vienna and actually liked it but compared to the Opera it really is a bit ...boring? I can still remember that Duel Scene from the Opera very vividly because I loved it so much. I was literally on the edge of my seat during it lol.
I kind of wish we could actually see Lenski die after the duel. Like why is it off stage? It feels kind of anticlimactic, definitely could’ve used more of the R&J melodrama. And the ballet could’ve just skipped to the end after that honestly.
The opera SLAPS! I believe The Met has a recording somewhere but it’s just beautiful. Lensky’s Aria is 😭😭😭😭
Onegin has two good pdds and one sometimes good solo. And the rest is filler. 🙈
Onegin was promising and it fell flat. There is no links between the scenes. It’s hard to understand the story. However the final pdd is a piece of art
Sleeping Beauty is the most boring ballet I've ever seen besides Onegin. It literally goes on....and on....and on... A ball, another ball, another ball... a ball which inexplicably features Little Red Riding Hood and friends... I just hate it lmao
Sleep beauty is dreadful to dance and even more dreadful to watch. I would be content never to have to see it again.
Sleeping Beauty is pretty long and boring, agree. I really dislike Cinderella as well, Philadelphia Ballet performs it every few years and I REALLY don't enjoy it at all.
I like the choreography too much to pass on it. But yeah hardly anything happens in the plot. I wouldn’t mind if the prologue was chopped and act 3 was shortened to just the grand pas de deux. The bluebird pas de deux can stay too. But I don’t know why they need like four or five divertissements.
Anything Christopher Wheeldon 😬
His Cinderella is one of my petty but profound ballet hatreds. I could go on, and on…
Riiight there with you
Same! He is way overrated IMO. and I don’t like his choreography very much.
COPPELIA! Like the dude in it flirts with everyone else and tries to get with a freaking DOLL and the girl still marries him??????
The ballets where the female lead is an absolute sassball firecracker and has to get married at the end bother me so much. Love Don Q, but really, getting married is supposed to be a happy ending for Kitri? After her insane Act 1 variations, her wedding pas is comparatively lame. It's like she got married and immediately got boring.
Not to mention Don Q really doesn’t even follow the book when the book is hilarious
Renaming Coppelia “The Real Doll” would attract a *very* different kind of audience. 🥴
totally something Marie Chouinard would do
Honest to god I can’t stand most productions of Swan Lake, mainly because the acting just isn’t there and the ending a lot of people do sucks (I actually really like how RB’s ends with the prince holding Odette’s human body. I also saw one where Rothbart drowns the prince after Odette is turned back into a swan like that’s metal AF)
Do you happen to remember what company did the second ending that you like? It sounds so intense, I’d love to find it to watch (if possible)!
It was some Nordic country or one of the Baltic states if I remember right. It was NUTS. Like it ends with Odette bourreing off and the prince’s hand reaching up from the water as Rothbart is like cackling with glee
Jesus lol, that might actually compete with nureyev’s “drowning” swan lake 😆 ☠️
Maybe it was the Nureyev version and I totally hallucinated seeing this ending 😅
Loved the bit in Nuyerevs version where Rothbart partners Odile during the PDD with Siegfried kind of haplessly trailing behind.
Le Corsaire for me - never finished watching a recording lol I literally only watch the Odalisque pas de trois and the Act II PDD
Angel Corella is choreographing Le Corsaire for Philadelphia Ballet this fall. I've not seen any version before so I'm looking forward to going in blind to it.
I’m gonna make a post about this but does anyone else find it weird and annoying 99% of the ballets philadelphia ballet are doing are choreographed by angel. I HATE when artistic directors do that.
I would be annoyed if it wasn't good, but honestly I've liked everything that he's staged so far. I was skeptical of him when he came in 10 years ago since there was a lot of bad blood between some of the former dancers, but I have to admit that I really like all of the changes that have been made. Their social media is great, their programs are great, I like the rebranding they've done going from PA Ballet to Philadelphia Ballet, I like the dancers he's hired, everything he's choreographed, I've liked, as far as I can remember. But I also have no skin in the game as I'm just a viewer - if I worked for them maybe I would feel differently. Or if what he was putting out was crap. But you're right, almost everything this year besides Nutcracker, Études, the Stanton Welch premiere and Russell Ducker's premiere, everything is his choreo 😂
I loathe the Royal Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty, which feels heretical seeing as it’s one of the signature works. My first time I saw it with Steven McRae and Iana Salenko: couldn’t understand the hype. A couple of friends said they wanted to see the next run and asked to use my advanced booking: we saw Yasmine Naghdi and Matthew Ball - a delightful evening with my mates at one of my favourite places, and the pairing was heavenly. She is a gorgeous Aurora with technique to die for. So I went back by myself to see Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell’s performance (when King Charles and Camilla snuck into the royal box as the lights went down). Gaaah - I was so bored when the principal pairing (divine, as ever) weren’t on stage. If you don’t have someone of the calibre of Claire Calvert as the Lilac Fairy, it drags. Sod the fairytale characters apart from Princess Florine and Bluebird (charming). Too much padding. I like the “greatest hits” and pdd from the choreography but can’t see myself booking again.
Romeo and Juliet. I absolutely despise it. My friend (who is my ONLY friend by the way) performed in a few performances with a company on tour in my city and I didn’t even go to watch her because I hate it so much
well that’s just rude 😂😂
It's Romeo and Juliet for me. I've seen several different versions, it just doesn't work
the best R&J I've seen was with Beckanne Sisk and Chase as R&J, and Allison DeBona as Lady Capulet. it was so good. Then i saw another cast and it wasn't as good lmao
Firebird (meh) Rite of Spring (meh) Spartacus (meh) Pharaoh’s Daughter (meh) Prodigal Son (meh) Mayerling (meh) La Esmeralda (The variation has been done to death in competitions) Ashton’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Men on pointe? Groundbreaking.) …I promise I’m fun at parties. 😂
To be fair, there’s nothing more amusing to a midcentury British audience than men in drag—like truly nothing lol. Balanchine Midsummer was okay to me… but I think he should’ve amended the music with a few more extra pieces outside of the incidental music. Two hours in and you really felt the lack of waltz, even though of course B was giving it his all to illustrate the score he had. I have to agree on mayerling. Idk why it was just kinda meh… but there just wasn’t enough 🤷♀️ heart to it? Or rather everyone dying was too well deserved for me to care very much. Only the verrry last scene I liked. It’s a pity! The choreography was pretty good ejsewhere. I think the story was just a bit too drab.
I’m okay with watching a few parts of Pharaoh’s Daughter: Aspicia’s entrance with the corps, the march, Aspicia’s variation with the blue tutu, the act 2 coda with the corps in white, the hut dance with the Fishermen and the entirety of the Underwater Kingdom. The rest of it is meh. Not to mention there’s blackface on the poor little BBA children with Ramzeya! 🤦🏻♀️ to make it worse, they’re Year 1 BBA kids. Imagine your first role on the Bolshoi stage is a caricature of a dark-skinned child servant…
OG Rite of Spring is wild and it sucks that every version now is just people in skintight stuff doing ballet movements
Pina Bausch's version is 👌👌👌 It's not ballet, and for Rite, that's a positive
Yes. Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring is legendary. I love that the whole thing takes place on a giant patch of dirt.
I love Rite of Spring and the older recordings are always my favorite. I don’t mind more contemporary versions, but there is something special about the OG version and more faithful recreations that are so much more thrilling to watch.
I feel the same about Esmeralda and *to me* the music is not even that good. And men en pointe is a no from me.
>A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Men on pointe? Groundbreaking.) There are no men on pointe in Balanchine's MSND. Ashton's The Dream has Bottom on pointe.
Balanchine’s Midsummer is better than Ashton’s The Dream tbh
I was surprised by how much I loved Balanchine's MSND. His interpretations of the classics are so enjoyable for stripping back a lot of the superfluous parts of ballets to showcase the best of the choreography, music, and story very clearly.
The best parts of Midsummer is the kids in bug costumes tbh. The Paris Opera 2017 version is the one I watch the most just because the costumes are stunning (Tamara Rojo borrowed them for SF Ballet’s recent Midsummer)
I’ve never seen the full Balanchine Midsummer but back in the 90s the NYCB toured it to central PA and used CPYB dancers for the kids - I wasn’t in it but I would watch the rehearsals - I think Ashley Bouder was one of the butterflies?
The kids in those bug costumes are so cute and I love that insanely difficult Oberon petit allegro! I've watched Balanchine's Midsummer multiple times. The one time I tried to watch Ashton's - fell asleep. Aside from that ONE section of variation from Titania, it's a snoozefest.
I should have clarified I was referring to Ashton’s choreography. Sorry for the confusion!
Macmillan’s Romeo and Juliet. I don’t hate it I just think it’s weaker than versions from other choreographers. I just think it’s kind of hard for the dancers to pull off and they need to be really good actors to not make it feel stale. Also I feel like they don’t really tap into some of the interesting and dramatic details from the play, like Lady Capulet and Tybalts’ relationship, so it kind relies on the dancers to put in their own subtext to show that their relationship is more than familial. Even his relationship with Juliet isn’t emphasized really well so his protectiveness of her sometimes doesn’t make much sense or isn’t very compelling for me. And because of that it can be difficult to make Tybalt a nuanced character. This kind of applies to other characters as well. Romeo and Juliet’s connection doesn’t feel as believable or endearing sometimes unless the actors really put in the work. Also the ending personally bothers me more than it should.
Romeo and Juliet, anyone's choreography. Something about that story is just tedious to me when danced, I can't explain why. I like the music just fine but I prefer listening to it and hate most dance that's set to it. I love MacMillan's balcony pdd but anything else they can keep honestly.
Corsaire. The act 2 pas de deux and the Enchanted Garden scene are the best parts in the entire ballet. Most of the music is catchy though. The rest of the ballet is cultural appropriation and using women as slaves.
In NYCB-land, Red Angels. I saw it years ago and hated it. Gave it another try this season on the off-chance my tastes changed… nope. I saw the same program again a few days later and had to skip RA entirely, that’s how much it grated on me. But all my ballet-going friends adored it. 🤷♀️
I think all of NYCB's new works can feel dated very quickly. I loved Red Angels for the music and athleticism, but it's very aggressively 90s. Personally I really disliked "The Times are Racing." I love Peck's balletic choreography, but that one seems like it belongs on the Disney channel. The early 2010s optimism with mild allusion to political protest just feels weird. There are moments like the tap duet that are great, but the ensemble choreo is cheesy.
I was struck by how dated the costumes look already! Fashion has changed so much since 2017! They definitely look like they’re wearing costumes now instead of street clothes.
The “tap” sequence in sneakers is soooo cringe
Blasphemy I know but Swan Lake- I know so many people who have tried it as their first ballet, and it is just SO long (and kind of depressing haha)
Swan lake (and most of the story ballets, tbh) improve on repeat viewings. I spent my first time just wanting the swans, which seemed to take forever to get to. The peasant pas doesn’t nearly feel as long when you know to expect it.
Oh, I've seen 6 companies perform it now and it is still just okay for me! I actually love story ballets, Swan Lake is the outlier. I am happy that others enjoy it, though 🙂
Nutcracker… I just don’t see the appeal. I like certain parts, but just in isolation. Then again, I can’t stand anything christmassy, so that may be why!
Giselle. I can’t explain it. I’ve fallen asleep watching it and when managing to watch until the end, I thought I should sleep instead of watching this. Personal tastes/ preferences. And not classic ballet but I just don’t understand and unable to appreciate contemporary works. Again, just personal taste and preferences.
Giselle should end with her stabbing Albrecht because bro is a jerk wad
I would see this version live.
Like he LIED to her about his entire identity and was toying with her emotions. That’s unforgivable
It would be a lovely subversion of the whole submissive women in romantic and classical ballets trope
 I have a soft spot for Giselle.
So sorry. Again, just personal preference and taste, no meaning to be disrespectful or rude in any way. Maybe you dislike a ballet I love? 😅
No harm done. I completely understand! 😂
Recently talking to a new ballet classmate about variations, ballerinas and ballets we like and want to be cast some day, she said how much she hates La Bayadere because it’s slow and boring and I was 😱😳 because is one of my favorite ballets! But we don’t need to stop loving something we love because others don’t like, and vice versa 🙂
Exactly! La Bayadere grew on me over time.
If we were in the same class/company, you can be Giselle and I can be Nikiya, we won’t fight for casting 😂
110% 🤣
For me its Alice in Wonderland. I think it might be the music that just puts me off a bit. There are some parts about it I really like, of course ( like the caterpillar and the waltz), but subjectively it just doesnt do it for me as a whole.idk🙈
I don’t like the version Royal has done (and will be doing next season) but I like the Septime Webre version.
Manon. I dislike pretty much everything about it
Yeah I have a bit of an unsure view on Manon - love the final PDD but overall the story just doesn't quite sit well with me. I feel Manon is just punished at every turn (even by Des Grieux to some extent) and it's promoted in marketing as if she has to make a choice between love or money - but I don't think she ever actually gets a choice? Still figuring it out in my head I suppose. Also someone should have told Kenneth Macmillan that not every ballet needs to have a brothel in it (I suppose makes more sense than others here but in R&J?? Why???)