The Ballet Pre-Theatre Guide: 80 World-Famous Ballets Summarised Act by Act | Pocket Theater Companion - Couverture souple

Mac, Ian

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1919121994 ISBN 13 : 9781919121994

Editeur : Ian Mac: The Arts Edge School, 2026

Synopsis

Curtain up in twenty minutes — and you've no idea what's about to happen on stage.

Eighty ballets. One entry each. Everything you need before the lights go down.

Ballet tells its stories without words. That is the glory of it, and also the reason so many people spend the whole of Act I quietly wondering who the man in the feathered hat is supposed to be, or why everyone has suddenly gone mad. The programme tells you the cast. This tells you the story.

The Ballet Pre-Theatre Guide covers eighty of the world's most performed ballets — from Swan Lake, Giselle and The Nutcracker to Mayerling, Manon, La Bayadère and Le Corsaire — with one self-contained entry for each. Read it in ten minutes on the train, in the interval, or in the last few seconds before the house lights dim.

What's inside

• 80 world-famous ballets, arranged alphabetically, one entry each
• The story told act by act — so you always know where you are and what just happened
• Composer, choreographer, premiere date and venue, and running time at a glance
• Why It Matters — a short note on each work's place in the repertoire, and what to watch for
• Alphabetical ballet contents list, so you can find tonight's ballet in seconds in the foyer
• Written to be read before the performance, not studied afterwards

Who it's for

• Theatregoers who want to follow the story instead of guessing at it
• Newcomers to ballet — no technical vocabulary, no assumed knowledge, nothing to look up
• Dancers and drama students preparing or learning a role
• Dance students and teachers needing a quick, reliable reference across the standard repertoire
• Anyone buying tickets as a gift who wants the recipient to enjoy the evening properly

Eighty ballets, eighty entries, and never again that sinking feeling in the second interval.

Companion to the Ballet Stories series on YouTube. Part of The Arts Edge Pre-Theatre Series.

Also in The Arts Edge Pre-Theatre Series

• The Opera Pre-Theatre Guide — 60 operas and 11 operettas
• The Shakespeare Pre-Theatre Guide — all 40 plays, act by act
• The Musicals Pre-Theatre Guide — 60 musicals from the West End and Broadway

Time is knowledge.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Ian Mac publishes The Arts Edge Pre-Theatre Series, guides to the ballet, opera, Shakespeare and musical theatre repertoires for audiences before curtain-up, and The Arts Edge Revision Series, a structured revision and study catalogue covering Shakespeare and nineteenth-century fiction, with more than fifty titles published since 2026 and the revision series extending to the full Shakespeare canon. He read English Literature with the History of Art at a Scottish university and has spent over twenty years in the art and antiques trade, dealing in pictures, early English silver and early walnut furniture, which he also restored. He collects antiquarian books: his own shelves hold leaves from the 1577 Holinshed, the chronicle Shakespeare drew on for Macbeth, King Lear and Cymbeline, and a first edition of Dickens's Our Mutual Friend in the original monthly parts. He came to publishing from education, working as a full-time technology trainer from 1990 to 1995 and later as director of new technologies at a London university. He writes and presents Ian Mac: The Arts Edge. His ethos: Time is Knowledge. theartsedge.com

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Ian Mac: The Arts Edge School
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1919121994
• ISBN 13: 9781919121994
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 90
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.fr/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg