Etoiles - Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet

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Summary: A look into the french ballet style
Review: This dvd is beautifully done and very up to date. It provides a very interesting look into the life of ballet dancers in France. It has those wonderful segments of classroom rehersals that students of ballet ( such as myself ) long to see in documentaries ( for example, a very intersting classroom performance of the male solo adagio at the end of act one of Swan Lake is provided ). This dvd is a "must have" addition to any serious dance video collection.

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Summary: etoiles
Review: This is well-done, and 'a voyeur's look' at the Paris Opera Ballet, as promised. You do get a good behind the scenes look at this great company, how dancers are trained, how they work in both rehersal and performance, even how they make-up for a performance. My big criticism, though, is that the subtitles get cut off at the bottom. Usually the line, or the second line if there are 2 lines of text, is cut so that you only see the top half (or less) of the letters. This is a huge distraction as its hard to follow. The camera shots then seem too fast and chaotic, probably because it takes so much more time to decipher the subtitles that by the time you get it the picture's changing again. I'm not sure if it was meant for the wide screen, and they never edited the frames for a television, but I think this could have been avoided. It doesn't exactly ruin it, but it definitely detracts.