It seems like if you have been telling a lot about POB on this board !
I would like to give a detail : dancers are very young when they enter the POB corps : generally no more than 16, and often 15 and a half !
I think this may be a reason why there are so many ranks in POB. (and now there are only five versus 6 in the old days when there were "petits sujets" and "grands sujets" !)
But Katharina Kranker is right on this point (though very hard indeed toward our dancers !) : the issue is not the formal rank, but whether each dancer be given a chance to be given some interesting roles and develop himself.
I would point out that very promissing young dancers may be given such roles even when they "official" rank is low. Recently, in the same role of the young girl of Afternoon of a Faun (from Robbins)3 different dancers have been casted : 1 "première danseuse" (Eleonora Abbagnato), and two "coryphées" (Emilie Cozette and the 19-year-old Juliette Gernez.
Ileana from Paris