1/5 Whole new levels of bad
  by Gwen (Los Angeles, CA United States)
Oh gee whiz, where do I start. This performance was so bad, I'd have to be here all day to talk about it's flaws. So, I'll just mention the major issues I have with this performance.

1. The stage was too small so the dancers all danced "small". There wasn't even enough room on the stage for all the Corps de Ballet so when they extended their legs into arabesque, their legs went off stage and into the wings.

2. The fog machine was so out of control that throughout the by the lake act, you couldn't see half of the Corps because they were hidden amongst the fake looking fog.

3. The lighting was awful. It looked like community theatre at it worst. The dancer's shadows against the backdrop were horribly distracting and screamed, "Amatuer production".

4. The dancing istelf was just okay by the two leads but they were very unpolished and made many mistakes.

5. The acting amongst the leads was non-existant. They just had one facial expression throughout the entire performance. Boring!

6. The filming of the performance was god-awful. There were so many close ups that you could even see the stubble in the "Ballerina's" arm pits. I'd say that in the entire performance, only 10% of the filming covered the dancer's entire body. I was almost wondering if the editor was trying to cover additional mistakes by the dancers by cutting to close ups.

7. The orchestra (which I suspected at times might have actually been pre-recorded) was never in time with the dancers. It was always too fast.

Anyway, I could go on for days. The bottom line is, this is not worth the money.

5/5 Candy for the soul
  by Dianelos Georgoudis (Greece)
This has become the DVD that both I (age 50) and by daughter (age 3) most like to watch. Everybody knows Tchaikovsky's great score, but this performance by the Moscow classical Ballet is marvelous. The prima ballerina, Marina Rzhannikova, is something to behold: endless, flawless legs; a face to kill for with huge fiery eyes. Her dancing is fluid and especially the movements of her arms seem to go beyond what human anatomy allows. She dances like she means it. Contrary to what is the norm she appears to be quite tall too. Just very very beautiful. Her prince, Nikolay Chevychelov, is a good match. A serious, expressive, and tightly controlled bundle of strength. He dances in a lyrical manner I find quite becoming. The rest of the corps is very good too, with some splendid solo dancing. Not to mention the very joyful Russian and Spanish dances. Petipa's original choreography has been adapted with very good effect by the artistic directors Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasilyov. The costumes are beautiful but not distracting, the sets minimalist. This is great ballet.

Like most ballets on DVD here too the aspect ratio is only 4:3, and as always it's impossible to be quite happy with the cinematography. Still, I can't recommend this DVD highly enough. Just splendid. I wish there were more DVDs like this one coming from Russia.