My First Ballet Collection

There is a noticeable pinkness about this DVD....it is so pink that even the black seems pink. When it arrived at my desk it stood out from the four other Opus Arte disks so dramatically that my colleagues suddenly decided to have a peek and with (almost) understandable speed, put it back on the pile straight away.

I imagine the overwhelming hue, together with smatterings of stars, fairy dust and suchlike means that the DVD is aimed towards the younger, female demographic despite the blurb stating "this is a perfect collection for any ballet beginner".  Time to stand up for the elder, less-female ballet novices then, of which I count myself as one, despite having had the privilege of seeing many of the DVDs in full over the last few years.

The excerpts themselves are excellent, showing the riches that await should you want to plunge into any of the various complete ballets Opus Arte have in their impressive catalogue. If there is anything to complain about performancewise, I would have preferred a less-cumbersome Waltz of the Flowers, but this is just me being picky.

Video and audio quality are very good indeed, although recording levels for many items differ dramatically - most noticeably between the Midsummer Night's Dream Epilogue and the Swan Lake Pas de trois

Having said all this, I can't really see this collection having much of an attraction for the complete novice. Younger viewers would not be able to sit through the whole 90 minutes without being distracted, and those like myself would prefer some form of description of what we are seeing, whether on the disc itself or within the booklet.



As it stands, 'My First Ballet Collection'  is little more than a promotional exercise for many of the discs which have alreay been reviewed on this site and will be of interest only to those who already know the music and are attracted by one or more of the dances on offer.