Paquita, Pas de Trois: The Ballerina's Variation

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 21:00:00 -0500

I’ll be honest: Paquita’s music is not the most interesting in the world. Still, look at what boring costs. The flute runs are quick and exposed, the kind you practice for years so that nobody notices them. The steps are the same: small, fast, exact, on the beat, with a smile. One person in the pit and one on stage have each trained for a decade to deliver two minutes of mediocre, boring, bathroom-break filler.

Dorothée Gilbert's last manon

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 21:00:00 -0500

Dorothée Gilbert danced her farewell at the Palais Garnier on October 15, in MacMillan’s L’Histoire de Manon. Her Des Grieux was Hugo Marchand, her partner of twelve years; they met rehearsing this ballet. The applause lasted thirty-five minutes.

I’ve written about Manon before, after seeing the Australian Ballet in Sydney. This time, let’s talk about the music, and why Manon might be so popular for farewell performances.

Ballet has more good music than it gets credit for. Manon’s score isn’t Massenet’s Manon. MacMillan used neither that opera nor Puccini’s. Leighton Lucas assembled the score from the rest of Massenet: other operas, oratorios, songs. It works better than a patchwork should. I’d put it in tier one. Tier zero is Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, who wrote ballet as symphonists. Tier one is well-orchestrated scores that serve the stage: Manon, Giselle, a few others.

Ballet on ariana's blog

Paquita, Pas de Trois: The Ballerina's Variation

Dorothée Gilbert's last manon