One of the things that makes Swan Lake so haunting for me is that it doesn't have the perfect, balanced ballet score that Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker do, and somehow that very imperfection magnifies its yearning quality--my mind has to fill in the blanks, so to speak, which means it appeals to a more personal kind of fantasy. For that reason, my perfect production probably exists only in my imagination. In the final minutes, Tchaikovsky's music is just soaring, crying out for something something something--probably something that can't be choreographed--but on stage you always get a bunch of ballerinas running around flapping their arms, earthbound. In anything less than a really great performance, I always want to laugh. It's only afterwards, as I walk home, that the moment is moving to me.
I agree completely about Orpheus. I'm sure it's a great ballet, but I've never seen a really compelling performance. Why does Martins always cast Nilas Martins in this ballet??
I've also never seen a really great performance of Les Sylphides--especially not at ABT, where they must pass out Sominex to the cast and conductor before every performance. (Those of us in the audience don't need it.)