What is your LEAST favourite ballet?

[cavycapers]

I could quite happily arrive just before the dance of the snowflakes in all future Nutcrackers!

[Geoff]

Rather a revealing discussion. Funny to see Acosta's Carmen make somebody's all-time list, that didn't take long. I agree, Carmen was infuriating in a way which lifted it beyond merely new-ballet-which-doesn't-work-and-will-be-forgotten. Not just poor, inept, vulgar, pretentious etc etc, it was head in the hands awful, and at the same time so irksomely full of itself. A special case and a horrible way to remember Acosta (imho RB management did him no favours by allowing him to make such a fool of himself but maybe they had little choice, given the circumstances).

 

SB has had a lot of comments. But surely saying one doesn't like Sleeping Beauty is like saying one doesn't like an encyclopaedia.

[Jacqueline]

I usually enjoy Ashton but I loathed Enigma Variations. It seemed to go on and on and I was praying for it to end. As others have said, sometimes it is just a matter of personal mood, casting etc. The performance I saw included a male RB dancer in a leading role, who has been described as displaying all the expression of someone who is wondering where they left their keys and I recall a review of that performance saying that it did seem uninvolving and emotionless, so it wasn't just me. I try and keep an open mind but I would never want to see this again. An hour or so of my life I will never get back etc.

Another production I found bafflingly awful was Eonnagata. There may have been an interesting idea in there somewhere, but it was completely overwhelmed by its ego and alleged cleverness, not to mention what must have been the massive costs of staging at the expense of coherent story telling and half decent, memorable choreography. Unfortunately, this approach is hardly unusual now.

[nycitybird]

Maybe Sleeping Beauty seems long because the story is essentially resolved in Act 2 and it goes on for another act! I do like the faeries though.

[Scheherezade]

I agree with:

Prince of the Pagodas (Macmillan and Bintley) - the Britten score just doesn't translate to movement;

Tetractys - and anything else with a pretentious name;

anything with nudity - moving parts on stage are not a good look! 

[Fonty]

I usually enjoy Ashton but I loathed Enigma Variations. It seemed to go on and on and I was praying for it to end. As others have said, sometimes it is just a matter of personal mood, casting etc. The performance I saw included a male RB dancer in a leading role, who has been described as displaying all the expression of someone who is wondering where they left their keys and I recall a review of that performance saying that it did seem uninvolving and emotionless, so it wasn't just me. I try and keep an open mind but I would never want to see this again. An hour or so of my life I will never get back etc.

 

 

I also thought Enigma Variations was very disappointing the last time I saw it.  A classic case of all the dancers performing the steps very, very carefully, but with very little attempt to make each character a real individual, as reflected in both the music and the choreography.  

 

Why is it that both the Nutcracker and the SB seems to be overlong?  The music is glorious, but I do find all those individual pieces in the Kingdom of the Sweets and the dances at Aurora's wedding seem to drag on a bit. 

 

Another one for the list:  Mr Wordly Wise. 

Edited March 25, 2016 by Fonty

[MAB]

Rather a revealing discussion. Funny to see Acosta's Carmen make somebody's all-time list, that didn't take long. I agree, Carmen was infuriating in a way which lifted it beyond merely new-ballet-which-doesn't-work-and-will-be-forgotten. Not just poor, inept, vulgar, pretentious etc etc, it was head in the hands awful, and at the same time so irksomely full of itself.

 

Really?  I must have seen scores of ballets far, far worse.  Ever see Nicholas Le Riche's Caligula?  At the matinee performance of Carmen I was sitting near a number of audience members who clearly loved it and were very vocal in their appreciation. 

 

If Carmen was the worse I'd seen in decades of ballet going I'd be a very happy bunny indeed.

[MAB]

I usually enjoy Ashton but I loathed Enigma Variations. It seemed to go on and on and I was praying for it to end. As others have said, sometimes it is just a matter of personal mood, casting etc. The performance I saw included a male RB dancer in a leading role, who has been described as displaying all the expression of someone who is wondering where they left their keys and I recall a review of that performance saying that it did seem uninvolving and emotionless, so it wasn't just me. I try and keep an open mind but I would never want to see this again. An hour or so of my life I will never get back etc.

 

 

Please tell me it wasn't the original cast.  They were sublime, but that ballet's on my ignore list now.

[bridiem]

Please tell me it wasn't the original cast.  They were sublime, but that ballet's on my ignore list now.

 

I still love Enigma, but it does depend how it's produced/danced. I think it's difficult for dancers now because it's not (mainly) technical, so it all depends on characterisation, nuance etc. And it's treated with great reverence, which doesn't help it.

[Jacqueline]

Please tell me it wasn't the original cast.  They were sublime, but that ballet's on my ignore list now.

It was part of a triple bill matinee in November 2011, sandwiched between Asphodal Meadows and Gloria. 

[LinMM]

I suppose original casts are often the best because the ballet has been choreographed around those particular people.

 

I certainly loved the original cast in Enigma.

I saw it again recently.....I think BRB ....and still enjoyed it but Beriosova's role hard to beat!!

 

I'm not that keen on too much nudity unless it's genuinely required as part of a role or storyline just as in any other performance art..theatre film etc.

 

I wonder if people keen to see dancers dance in the nude would be prepared to sit in the audience in the nude!

[LinMM]

Whoops sorry the nudity bit is on another thread someone has started.

[Jacqueline]

Whoops sorry the nudity bit is on another thread someone has started.

Your question about audience nudity is interesting though. We are all in it together after all. Although some of us are more in it than others. I don't think I would give up my clothes at reception. Or could we get to our seats before whipping everything off. We could strip off while hiding under a towel like Brits on the beach. I don't fancy sitting next to a 'man spread' though. I am sure there are people out there who would go for being a naked audience. Imagine the selfie outbreak!

[taxi4ballet]

Well I love Petrushka because I had read so much about Fokine and his ballets before I finally saw it so it was special,for,me

 

However if you were only six I can quite imagine how it gave you nightmares.

It's not really a very happy or nice story and there is a weirdness and strangeness about it which may be okay to absorb if you are 20 but a bit unpalatable for a six year old!!

I know what you mean. My dd is currently studying the work at vocational upper school - I wouldn't have wanted to take her to see it when she was younger.

[Rachelm]

Jewels- I just find it really boring!

[Rachelm]

I agree with Lisa - I think the Beauty improves once the story is out of the way. For me, other bore-fests include anything by Ashton. (Go on, call me a heretic!) I also don't like that silly running about in pyjamas thing, which is known as "In the Upper Room".

 

I agree about a lot of Ashton- I love Thais Pas de Deux, Five Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan, and Fille- but aside from that I find his choreography really fussy. It's a bit like when a blouse has too many ruffles, lace and frills!!!! That's the feeling I get from his work. Now I'll probably get slaughtered!

[FLOSS]

The problem with the Ashton repertory is that for the main part  it is not as carefully cast as it should be. Casting star dancers may guarantees ticket sales  but it does not guarantee stellar performances. His choreography should not look fussy in performance.As for Enigma Variations it is a great ballet but casting decisions by both Royal Ballet companies of recent years have done the work no favours.

 

The 2011 revival at Covent Garden was very patchy and should not be taken as representative of what the work can be in performance.. The BRB performances at Sadler's Wells last year were extremely variable. The Friday evening performance was so badly danced that I almost did not go to the matinee performance. The Friday cast seemed to have little idea of what they were supposed to be portraying  and the dancing looked more like something from Monty Python's ministry of funny walks than Ashton  choreography. Those in the audience who knew what it should look like came out shaking their heads in disbelief  those who did not were perplexed. The matinee cast which included Joseph Caley was excellent.  One of the problems with both companies is that they insist on having two casts when it is difficult enough to find one. that is good enough, As nearly all of Ashton's choreography should look easy in performance it is dangerous to assume that apparent ease of execution equates with lack of technical challenges and difficulty.. He, like his contemporaries, worked in the shadow of Fokine's aesthetics which were a reaction against all the overt technical display found in Petipa's late  ballets His ideal was. ballet used to tell stories and create mood rather than reduced to a displays of dance..

 

I think that most of the problems that people have with  Sleeping Beauty are attributable to the sluggish tempi adapted in performance. It is a completely different ballet when performed at a speed that the choreographer and composer would recognise. Replacing the Russian conductors who indulge the dancers would do wonders for performances as would careful and contrasting casting of the Fairy Variations a few technically competent Lilac Fairies and Auroras who understand the trajectory of the role and don't treat the Rose Adagio as an Olympic event.

 

Here is my loath list. There are other ballets which I dislike but these have an unpleasant habit of being revived. They are nearly all by MacMillan.

 

Different Drummer in which far from expanding the range of ballet's subject matter MacMillan shows what ballet is incapable of  doing. It is a pallid effort which fails to achieve anything remotely as effective as Berg's opera Wozzeck. 

 

Rituals a ballet of incredible stupidity supposedly influenced by the company's visit to Japan.

 

My Brother my Sisters. A jolly little ballet about murdering a sibling. A bore even with the original cast.

 

Playground. A jolly day at a mental institution. A great waste of Marion Tait's gifts and the audience's time.

 

Judas Tree. A heady mixture of religiosity and rape on a building site.

 

Valley of Shadows.. If I recall a piece based on a popular novel with a holocaust theme.

 

Isadora in any form. The closest you can get to ballet as documentary. I suspect  that MacMillan was prompted to create it by Ken Russell's BBC documentary about Isadora Duncan. A sequence of scenes with Duncan's lovers and two freak accidents do not add up to an effective theatrical work. There is tragedy in it but not theatrical tragedy.Freak accidents are not the theatrical equivalent of someone destroyed by flaws in their character or societal pressures.

 

Last, but by no means least Raven Girl. I can only assume that it cost a packet. The need to recover production costs is the only rational explanation for its revival.

Edited March 25, 2016 by FLOSS

[Duck]

Tricky question as the casting and my mood and/ or alertness on the day all can have an influence so I am limiting my comments to those ballets that I've seen more than once and I still don't like them.

 

Any ballet, be it one act or full length, which is danced to a 'specially commissioned score) where the choreographer runs out of valid ideas before the composer.

 

... or where the choreographer uses an existing score and also runs out of ideas before the end of the music.

 

 

With Ashton, I've realised that I often like the non-narrative pieces however I tend to struggle a lot with his narrative ballets.

 

Other dis-likes are generally narrative ballets - regardless of the choreographer - where divertissements don't move the story forward. And comedy. And definitely nudity.

 

 

Duo Concertant. Didn't like the music, the dancing, or the setting. It always reminded me of a couple of people in their underwear doing physical contortions in an empty warehouse to the sound of cats being strangled.

 

Is this Balanchine/ Duo Concertant, or is there another ballet with the same title? POB currently does Duo Concertant, and the costumes look like "normal Balanchine", an example here https://www.operadeparis.fr/en/season-15-16/ballet/alexei-ratmansky-george-balanchine-jerome-robbins-justin-peck/gallery#slideshow0/4 (still trying to get a ticket ...).

[Melody]

 

 

Is this Balanchine/ Duo Concertant, or is there another ballet with the same title? POB currently does Duo Concertant, and the costumes look like "normal Balanchine", an example here https://www.operadeparis.fr/en/season-15-16/ballet/alexei-ratmansky-george-balanchine-jerome-robbins-justin-peck/gallery#slideshow0/4 (still trying to get a ticket ...).

Yes, it is, although I must admit I might be mixing it up with another Balanchine ballet where the girl wears a plain black leotard. San Francisco Ballet did a lot of Balanchine ballets when I was a regular ballet-goer there, and I could be remembering the costumes from one of them and the rest from another. The ballet I mean is the one where there are two dancers on stage, along with a pianist and violinist. I just remember thinking that as long as I was going to have to sit through a ballet with a piano on stage, I'd much rather be watching The Concert.

 

And if I didn't know better (if SF Ballet was my main source of knowledge about ballet), Ashton's The Dream, which I really like, would have been firmly on the list. I saw them perform it (or at least an excerpt) soon after Helgi Tomasson had taken over and was reshaping it into a Balanchine company, and they made the most appalling pig's breakfast of it. It was so frustrating to hear comments during the interval about how Ashton must be a pretty third-rate choreographer because my goodness what a mess, when actually the problem was that the company didn't have a clue how to dance it. I'm surprised they were allowed to go ahead with it, but then the Ashton repertoire never did have the ferocious gatekeepers that the Balanchine one did.

Edited March 25, 2016 by Melody

[Terpsichore]

A dead heat between Nixon's Swan Lake and Beauty and the Beast and Macmillan's Anastasia.

[Geoff]

Just read this set of postings alongside the other, opposite, list (for our *favourite* ballets). Surprising little crossover, though Jewels and Isadora seem to do well on both lists, i.e. they arose some strong feelings as personal favourites as well as least favourites!

Edited March 25, 2016 by Geoff

[Duck]

Yes, it is, although I must admit I might be mixing it up with another Balanchine ballet where the girl wears a plain black leotard. San Francisco Ballet did a lot of Balanchine ballets when I was a regular ballet-goer there, and I could be remembering the costumes from one of them and the rest from another. The ballet I mean is the one where there are two dancers on stage, along with a pianist and violinist. I just remember thinking that as long as I was going to have to sit through a ballet with a piano on stage, I'd much rather be watching The Concert.

 

The information on the POB site lists a violinist and a pianist for Duo Concertant, so I guess it will be the ballet that you have in mind    I'll report back if I get to see it.

[Fonty]

I am surprised that so many people on here seem to have seen ballet being danced in the nude!  I am extremely thankful that I have managed to miss that out. 

[northstar]

What a riveting topic ! Thanks Lisa for opening it !

 

Rather a revelation to me to hear Sleeping Beauty receive so much scorn. I'd have chosen this ballet as my favourite if I was asked - I love bridiem's description of it's austerity, that's a very appropriate word. Very interested to hear Floss's thoughts on how the ballet's interpretation may be the issue (as to liberties with tempo, I'd the Swan Lakes we see nowadays are the worst culprits in that regard, although I agree the climax of the Rose Adagio is usually horribly, painfully slow).

 

I would be very interested to hear of the people who chose SB as their least favourite - did they always dislike it, or grow to ?

 

I'd have to chose as my least favourite (from my limited experiences of live ballet performances) the Romeo and Juliet's I've seen (Nureyev and MacMillan versions). I don't really understand the perpetual popularity of this ballet (yet), except perhaps as the eternal fascination with the drama and power of the story. Musically and choreographically, neither version I have seen have appealed to me as much as other ballets I have seen. 

 

But ask me again again in another few years, it may well become my favourite!

[Duck]

Up until this thread, I had come to believe I would probably be the only person on this forum who doesn't like some of the Ashton ballets. Reading the posts here, it gives me some comfort that I am not utterly and completely on my own.

 

-------------

edited wording for clarity

Edited March 25, 2016 by Duck

[FLOSS]

While it would be interesting to know whether those who have put the Sleeping Beauty on their loath list have always disliked the ballet it would be even more interesting to know the following;-

1. In what decade they first saw it?

2.Which production they saw? 

3. Whether their first visit to Beauty was  early on in their ballet going career?

4. Who their first Aurora was?

 

These are all relevant factors in determining whether or not you will end up enjoying it. When you start ballet going   you  know very little. You know the names of a few ballets and you try to see them. But  whether or not you see good casts in fine productions that are well danced as far musicality and style are concerned is very much a matter of chance.  But those initial experiences will determine how you feel about vast tracts of the repertory.

 

The  attitude of dancers and coaches  affects what you see on stage. The dancers may not want to follow the coaches' view of how the ballet should be performed and where the emphasis should lie. Rojo clearly indicated in a film clip that was on the ROH website that she thought that as her technique was stronger than those of  the dancers who had created the nineteenth century ballets  she should apply her technique to her performances of them in order to make the roles her own. This of course can lead to a complete distortion of  a ballet  by placing the emphasis on the wrong part of a ballet for example, emphasising the first act  Rose Adagio at the expense of the Grande pas de Deux in the  last act. Add  a sluggish tempo. and you have a very boring evening which because the ballerina is a well known dancer you will blame on the ballet and its creators,not the performer,..

Edited March 26, 2016 by FLOSS

[Fonty]

 

"The  attitude of dancers and coaches  affects what you see on stage. The dancers may not want to follow the coaches' view of how the ballet should be performed and where the emphasis should lie. Rojo clearly indicated in a film clip that was on the ROH website that she thought that as her technique was stronger than those of  the dancers who had created the nineteenth century ballets  she should apply her technique to her performances of them in order to make the roles her own. This of course can lead to a complete distortion of  a ballet  by placing the emphasis on the wrong part of a ballet for example, emphasising the first act  Rose Adagio at the expense of the Grande pas de Deux in the  last act. Add  a sluggish tempo. and you have a very boring evening which because the ballerina is a well known dancer you will blame on the ballet and its creators,not the performer,.".

 

I get fed up with modern dancers saying that their technique is stronger than those of earlier generations.  Having watched the BBC film of the Fonteyn SB, I was struck by the speed, lightness, musical qualities,  and sheer joy that the individual dancers seemed to bring to the stage.  I didn't find any of it boring at all, the whole thing zipped along with a zest that I haven't seen for a long time in the UK.  (I've not seen foreign productions.) 

 

While I agree with any dancer wanting to bring their own interpretation to the classics, by emphasising their own particular party piece, they set a precedent for future dancers to try and emulate, and hence the original qualites of the ballet are completely lost.  At the moment, the trend seems to be "How slowly can I dance in order to show off my beautiful extensions?" - a topic that has been discussed so many times, I am surprised dancers themselves don't realise how boring it has become for the audience.

 

Having said that, I wonder how future dancers will handle the contortions of, say, one of McGregor's ballets in order to show off the "advances" in their technique. 

 

(Edited to add I seem to have lost the Quote function, no idea what happened there.)

Edited March 26, 2016 by Fonty

[annamicro]

It would be along list, so I'm choosing the last one, for sure one of the most horrendous thing (and performance) I've ever seen: Neumeier's Peer Gynt. Maybe it could be better than with another cast, as it was pointed out in Russian review, but not that much, I'm afraid.

 

I love many Nuemeier's works and Giselle is one of my favourite ballets, but his version of Giselle is absolutely awful and deserves to be added to the list.

[northstar]

I agree Floss's questions about Sleeping Beauty are very pertinent and would be very interesting to hear peoples' answers to them. SB perhaps more than any other ballet raises the question of technique vs. artistry, and perhaps the modern exaggerated technique can really be a turn off for some.

 

I find Rojo's attitude to this fascinating and still unclear to me. I too have heard the interview Floss recalls (or some similar interview), where she appears to give much weight to technique. But wasn't she also quoted in a Telegraph as saying 'Just a beautiful body? That bores me to death' ?. And I'm nearly sure in her BBC Radio 3 Private Passions interview (not available on demand at the moment) that she complained that ballet conductors slowed the tempo too much at the demand of the dancer, and she cited Swan Lake Act II as an example. However, I don't think even Rojo could deny being somewhat guilty of this in the Rose Adagio herself (i've never see her dance it live but internet clips of her performances seem to prove this). I don't actually mind the spectacle of technique too much, it's a musical problem I have; the final bars of the Rose Adagio I think sound awful and sort of dreary when they are slowed down so much. 

Edited March 26, 2016 by northstar

[MAB]

I'm very sympathetic towards those that find SB boring.  FLOSS has nailed it, it's the sluggish tempi turning the entire ballet into a dirge that's transforming the ballet into an ordeal to watch.  I've made my feelings clear here before about the "improved technique" of crotch flashing extensions and will no longer watch those dancers with so little empathy for classical works that they choose to use them solely as a display of distorted technique.

 

For the record my first Aurora was Antoinette Sibley and I can remember watching impeccable performances from Fonteyn when she was in her 50's, with no concessions to her age - when the music speeded up, so did she.  It is the slowing down of allegro passages that worry me, too many current dancers only know the bottom gears and overdrive is a mystery to them.  Yes, boring.

[Two Pigeons]

It worries me that we seem to be getting a generation of new ballet goers who seem to think that all dancers should be tall, leggy and dance very slowly. If you have a look at the recording of SB on YouTube starring Merle Park as has been commented on this and other threads some of the dancing seems near miraculous in terms of its speed and accuracy.

 

However, if you also read some of the comments accompanying the ballet, some of which are grossly offensive, you may get the impression that for many posters this type of dancing is less than acceptable.

 

Fashions come and go in ballet just as in every other area of life. However this does not mean that because previous dancers do not comform to the modem idiom they are any less marvellous.

Edited March 26, 2016 by Two Pigeons

[Terpsichore]

The Sleeping Beauty is a bit long though I don't mind that in the least because the music is so beautiful. However, I agree it could benefit from some judicious pruning.

 

I saw a rather good production last week by Chelmsford Ballet which was cut down to three acts very skilfully to manageable proportions without losing important bits such as the rose adagio and the bluebird pas de deux.  Considering that most of the dancers had full time education or full time careers outside dance it was all the more remarkable. I've reviewed it in my blog if anyone is interested.

 

As it happens I will have a chance to see Peter Wright's production for the Hungarian Ballet on 17 April 2016.   He has invited the London Ballet Circle to the show.  

[Don Q Fan]

I like Sleeping Beauty but find Act3 overlong with too many characters cut that back and we'd be fine.

 

I'm not a fan of Romeo and Juliet. 

 

I really do not like anything much by McGregor, I did not like any of ENBs Lest We Forget, or Rambert so anything modern is a no no for me, with perhaps one or two exceptions eg In the Middle Somewhat Elevated, Grosse Fuge.