...variations and Pas du Duex?

Essential= The ones that every dancer ABSOLUTELY MUST get right.

iczerman...there is an older thread totally devoted to this-(favourite PDD's). I don't have the time to look for it right now, but I'm sure somebody else will help.

Voila!
http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=25452

Of course, this doesn't cover iczerman's category: "most essential."

My suggestion is that those who want to talk about their favorites post on the older thread. Iczerman, how about we reformat this topic to focus on ...

see iczerman...? That didn't take that long. Thanks, bart!

Okay!!!

Bayadere, Shades Act PDD. Particularly the veil business in the Adagio. Hate to see variances on this . If you can't get it right, don't dance it.

The Reel scene in "La Sylphide".

Odile's fouettes! These don't faze dancers today, but there was a time when you held your breath. They were known to be Fonteyn's bete noir; she had a tendency to travel. In a review of a NYC performance a critic said "last night Miss Fonteyn took a Cooks Tour of the Metropolitan Opera stage". ( Cooks being a British travel agency ).

I still hold my breath for Aurora in the passing of the roses. I once saw Gelsey Kirkland GELSEY KIRKLAND! come down off pointe, and I get so nervous as it approaches you'd think I had to get up and do it myself.

The entrance of Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. It sets the tone for the rest of the ballet. Margot was unforgettable in this entrance. You had to see her do it live. I had the good fortune to see her closeup as I was in the production as well. It still gives me chills to think about it now.

This is one I also thought about. This is not so much a matter of technique but of presentation of the character, which Fonteyn could project with complete naturalness, through technique as well as personality.

I contrast the incandescenet impression Fonteyn made with a recent performance by a technically highly competent principal from a major American company. This dancer entered, big smile on face but without a spark of inner light. She did all the steps but could not convince you that she, young Aurora, was worth all the fuss going on around her.

Another "essential" for me is the ability to convey -- through movement, phrasing, accent, nuance: in other words DANCING (not just making faces) -- the complex differences between Odile and Odette. One might even argue that an effective balancing of Odette / Odile is the make-or-break factor in this ballet.

All of The Sleeping Beauty.

I agree with Marc.

The Sleeping Beauty is the apogee of academic classical ballet.

As far as I can see, no other work in this genre before or after its production meets so completely, the appellation of a gesamtkunstwerk.

Marc and Leonid: Not to disagree with the estimation of Sleeping Beauty as a total and unified work However, iczerman asks about variations or pas de deux, which suggests focusing on essential elements -- the parts which, if they are done poorly, undercut the entire ballet -- rather than the tapestry as a whole.

SB can survive less than perfect performance of some of its peripheral elements. (All real-life performances, inevitably, have such let-down points.) But are there specific "essential" elements that demand perfect execution or as close to that as one can get? Aurora's entrance and the Rose Adagio have already been suggested. Are there any others?

Sticking with SB, I find the mime an essential element.

If the characterisations are good then fluffed moments have little effect on me. I have sat willing dancers through the Rose Adagio, gritted my teeth in the Black Swan and I can think of many dancers who have failed at such moments but I would never as a ballet lover say, "...the parts which, if they are done poorly, undercut the entire ballet ..."

As far a SB goes, I care much more about the Vision adagio (first) and the Wedding pdd (second) as pivotal to the success of a performance, more than anything in Act I.

If Odette doesn't sing, the Swan Lake is a failure.

And for Bayadere, the Shades scene depends on the corps' unity and fluidity more than it does the principals' parts.

Sorry about my ignorance, but I really didn't get that...

Metaphorically.

My fault for still been clueless ...sorry Carbro. Language barriers.

The European Mute Swan, who it was claimed never made a noise whilst alive but tragically and incredibly, sings when dying.

I hated it when I was told this was only a myth.