American Ballet Theatre at the Met - Mixed Bill (Includes Les Sylphides & Paquita)

G:

Regular 1.33:1 - Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo - Colour - 100 Minutes - NTSC

Note: Region 1 DVD - only playable on multizone players

From the Metropolitan Opera House, New York

"Picture quality is excellent, very clear, and no NTSC colour jaggies. Some credit must go to the stage designer and lighting engineer as well as to the video director and technicians. Two channel stereo sound quality is quite good, and it will open up nicely in your Dolby surround decoder. Soloists in the orchestra (such as the violin in the Prokofiev) are amplified so they dominate the sound texture."
(MusicWeb)

This triple bill of ballets, with an additional glittering pas de deux, is a delightful introduction to the range and excitement of American Ballet Theatre's repertory. The first piece is Les Sylphides in which Mikhail Baryshnikov is the poet surrounded by the drifting chorus of sylphs. The Sylvia Pas de deux is a sparkling duet for Martine van Hamel and Patrick Bissell, and is followed by Triad, one of Sir Kenneth MacMillian's most poetic and sensitive short ballets. Finally, in a blaze of brilliant dancing, the Grand Pas from Paquita shows off the technical virtuosity of ABT's dancers in a cascade of mock-Spanish bravura choreography staged by Natalia Makarova from the original Petipa version.