Books like 101 Stories of the Great Ballets: The Scene-by-Scene Stories of the Most Popular Ballets, Old and New
101 Stories of the Great Ballets: The Scene-by-Scene Stories of the Most Popular Ballets, Old and New
1975, George Balanchine
4.7/5
This book was obviously written for serious balletomanes and dancers, as some bits will be hard to follow unless you understand dance terminology. As a dancer myself, I find it really useful. You get spare, clean plot paraphrases with a decided lack of the busy pink illustrations so common in books of this nature. My complaint, however, is that there is a lot of page space given to obscure then-modern ballets not often performed today. It doesn't contain many of the older ballets brought up in dance history books, which is what I'd like to use it for. Because who really knows the plot of Paquita or Raymonda??? (Other than that they're supposed to be fabulously stupid.) Still, good resource for neat, alphabetical referencing. Also, with ballets that have multiple versions, a summary of each major one is provided. Very thoughtful