The Royal Ballet
★ 5 · 1960 · 137m · Music
Filmed on the stage of London's Covent Garden. Includes extracts from Swan lake, Ondine & The Firebird.
More Like This
Pas de Deux
1968 · ★ 6.6
Two ballet dancers perform a dance enhanced with surreal after-image visuals.
More info →
Let's Dance
2019 · ★ 6.5
After his crew breaks up, a gifted but insecure hip-hop dancer teaches at a top ballet school in Paris, where he falls for an aspiring ballerina.
More info →
Giselle: Belle of the Ballet
2017
Tamara Rojo, dancer and artistic director of English National Ballet, explores Giselle - the first great Romantic ballet, and a defining role for any ballerina. Through two radically contrasting 2016 productions - a traditional 19th-century recreation, and a gritty reimagining of the work by celebrated Anglo-Bangladeshi choreographer Akram Khan - Rojo examines the cultural and social background to the ballet’s genesis in 1840s Paris, and the spiritual themes that have fuelled its success over the last 175 years. Giselle is the story of a young peasant girl who personifies all that is good in life, and ultimately forgives the aristocrat who has seduced and betrayed her. With Giselle, the look and emotional heart of ballet was transformed forever, from mime-based storytelling to a fusion of emotion, music and movement, formulating a tradition that has inspired audiences, dancers and choreographers ever since.
More info →
The Winter's Tale (The Royal Ballet)
2014 · ★ 8
The story follows the destruction of a marriage through consuming jealousy, the abandonment of a child and a seemingly hopeless love. Yet, through remorse and regret – and after a statue comes miraculously to life – the ending is one of forgiveness and reconciliation. Wheeldon continues his highly successful collaboration with designer Bob Crowley and composer Joby Talbot, the team behind Alice, in one of the highlights of The Royal Ballet Season.
More info →
Peer Gynt
2008
A dramatic, energetic adaptation of Heinz Spoerli's ballet based on Grieg's Peer Gynt by the Zurich ballet. Marijn Rademaker is excellent as the title character, clearly telegraphing the emotional range required. Each of the characters and the dramatic scenes are supported by the orchestral passages and songs provided by Grieg; some spoken word passages extracted from the Ibsen play.
More info →
The Royal Ballet: The Nutcracker
2018
Clara is given an enchanted Nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve. As midnight strikes, she creeps downstairs to find a magical adventure awaiting her and her Nutcracker. Recorded on stage 3 December 2018—15 January 2019 as part of the Autumn 2018/19 season.
More info →
Royal Opera House: Don Quixote
2019
Don Quixote and his servant Sancho Panza set out to have a chivalrous adventure. They meet Kitri and Basilio, a young couple who cannot marry because Kitri's father is determined to marry her off to the wealthy Gamache. Don Quixote decides to intervene. It was on stage 15 February—4 April 2019 as part of the Winter 2018/19 season.
More info →
Bolshoi Ballet '67
1965 · ★ 10
For the first time! Come behind the scenes and splendors of this fabulous world-famed company! Come inside its rehearsal halls, its opening nights, its dreams!
More info →
La Scala Ballet: La Bayadère
2006
The 2006 revival of Natalia Makarova's 1992 production of La Bayadere, recorded at the Teatro alla Scala featuring two international ballet stars Svetlana Zakharova and Roberto Bolle.
More info →
Fröken Julie
1959 · ★ 7
A well-composed psychological dance drama of a completely different kind from the usual romantic and sometimes superficial ballets. And an intrusive interpretation of August Strindberg's play.
More info →
Carla
2021 · ★ 7.2
The extraordinary life of Carla Fracci, the greatest Italian ballerina of all time, told from her first steps at the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan to the stages of the most prestigious international theaters, passing through the controversial choices, difficult sacrifices, and important satisfactions that marked her rise. Freely inspired by the autobiography “Passo dopo passo – La mia storia” (Step by Step – My Story).
More info →