What was the best ballet dvd this year for you

[Cliff]

My ballet DVD collection is growing at an alarming rate. My favorites acquired this year in no particular order are:

1. Swan Lake with Zakharova. She is great. Although the editing of the corp is distracting.

2. Le Corsaire with Asylmuratova and the Kirov. I enjoyed this video so much that I also acquired the ABT version, and was disapointed.

3. Don Quixote with Dupont and the POB.

4. An Evening with the Royal Ballet. Fonteyn and Nureyev. Orignally released well before 2005 but still excellent.

[atm711]

Ever since I saw Mark Platt in Ballets Russes, I've been looking for his old movies --

He made a great film with Rita Hayworth and did lots of dancing, I saw it recently on AMC--unfortunately, I cannot remember the title---Dirac, where are you?

I found it---"Tonight and Every Night" (1945).

[walboi]

There's nothing I've enjyed more on DVD this year than "7 Brides for 7 Brothers" -- I can't get enough of it. Ever since I saw Mark Platt in Ballets Russes, I've been looking for his old movies -- and that's the one that's readily available. Jacques d'Amboise, who was 17 at the time, is in it -- glorious, and so modest. he played either Daniel or Ephraim, and Platt the other -- Also Matt Maddox, fabulous dnacer and the most beautiful legs and such a noble torso, also Tommy Rawls, who could do triple tours (d'Amboise says in the documentary about making it that's on the bonus disc.)

THe BROTHERS!!!!!! o my GOD!. They're like a pack of dogs, they have one nervous system for the lot of them and move like single unit -- not like a corps de ballet, but like a soccer team or birds or dogs.... the scene where Jane Powell arrives at the house to discover that she isn't coming to married bliss but a household of rough-tumble GUYS is mozartean in its complexity of tone -- poignant for her but still the funniest thing I think I've ever seen -- fantastic choreography by Michael Kidd, from whom it looks like Jerome Robbins learned everything he needed for Broadway, for the moves are all dancing in their rhythms but none of them dance steps and always further the action -- until you get to the barn-dance, which is huge,  where there are lots of ballet dancers (Kelly Brown, Leslie and Ethan Browne's father looks REAL good) and some ballet catches and flat out steals from deMille, but Kidd always is using plot-points to govern his vocabulary, so it has to be moves these people would do.... American dramballet --

It's an MGM musical, I admit, there's lots of dialogue and singing and story-telling -- but at the back of it there's always a dance-mind at work.

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Hi Paul,

I could not agree more, this film is dynamite

Walbo

[chrisk217]

I watched again the Paris Sylphide yesterday and realised that the only reason I did not include it in my list is that after titles like Bayadere, Don Quixote and Sleeping Beauty I have come to expect excellence from the POB dvds.

I forgot to mention it earlier but La Sylphide also has the most excellent video direction & editing I saw this year on a ballet dvd. The director valiantly resists the urge to close up on the beautifull etoiles, you never notice his presence. It's just like a performance. There are shots that last up to a minute. No gratuitous changes of angle. Almost no chopped feet while dancing. Remarkable. Francois Roussilon!!!!

[walboi]

Almost no chopped feet while dancing.

Almost no chopped feet? ! Well that's a miracle. Is it on dvd?

Walboi

[chrisk217]

Yes, it is a miracle. Or maybe, it's the result of filming dance and performance arts consistently.

An amazon.co.uk link to start your search:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009JVOLG/

[walboi]

Yes, it is a miracle. Or maybe, it's the result of filming dance and performance arts consistently.

An amazon.co.uk link to start your  search:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009JVOLG/

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Thanks for the link I have ordered it rightaway.

Walboi