The hardest part of a first ballet is not sitting through it. It is choosing which one, from a season brochure that assumes you already know the difference between a three-act Petipa classic and a triple bill of twenty-minute works.
Here is the short version of that difference. A full-length story ballet runs a whole evening, has a plot, sets, and a familiar score, and asks nothing of you but attention. A mixed bill (also called a triple bill or a repertory program) is two or three shorter works with intermissions between them, often with no story at all. Both are good first nights. Story ballets are the safer first choice; mixed bills are the faster way to find out what you personally like.
Run times, intermission counts, and which production a company is dancing all vary — check the performance page for the night you are considering.
The story classics
1. The Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky, 1892). The most performed ballet in America and, for most people here, the first one. Nearly every company mounts its own version each December, and George Balanchine’s 1954 staging for New York City Ballet is the one that made it a national tradition. Short, bright, packed with famous music, and forgiving of a wandering attention span. Watch for: the transformation scene at the end of Act I, and the Act II divertissements, each a self-contained showpiece.
2. Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky). The definitive ballet in the popular imagination. The 1877 Moscow premiere was not a success; the 1895 Petipa and Ivanov revival is the basis of nearly everything you will see today. Watch for: the white acts, where the corps de ballet moves as a single body — this is the reason to sit high enough to see the floor. And Odette and Odile danced by the same ballerina, two opposite characters in one night.
3. Giselle (Adolphe Adam, 1841). A peasant girl is betrayed, loses her mind, dies, and in the second act joins the Wilis, the spirits of jilted brides. The clearest demonstration in ballet of acting and dancing being the same skill. Watch for: the mad scene closing Act I, and the shift in Act II, where the ballet drains of color and turns weightless.
4. The Sleeping Beauty (Tchaikovsky, Petipa, 1890). The grandest of the classics and the purest display of classical technique — less about story than about ceremony and scale. A good second ballet rather than a first if you want plot, and an excellent first ballet if you want spectacle. Watch for: the Rose Adagio, Aurora’s balancing sequence in Act I, one of the hardest things in the repertoire.
5. Don Quixote (Minkus, Petipa, 1869). Fast, comic, Spanish-inflected, and built around a village romance rather than the novel. The most extroverted of the classics and a reliably fun night. Watch for: the final wedding pas de deux, a standard gala showpiece.
6. Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev, 1938). Shakespeare with a score that does much of the storytelling for you. Many choreographers have set it — Kenneth MacMillan’s 1965 version is the most widely performed, and John Cranko’s 1962 version also turns up in American repertoire — so the production credit on the ticket page matters. Watch for: the balcony pas de deux, and how the crowd scenes make the feud feel like a city rather than a plot device.
7. Coppélia (Léo Delibes, 1870). A comedy about a toymaker and a doll, brighter and lighter than the tragedies, and one of the most enjoyable full-lengths to bring a first-timer or a child to. Watch for: Act II, where Swanilda pretends to be the doll — pure comic dancing.
8. La Bayadère (Minkus, Petipa, 1877). A temple dancer, a warrior, a betrayal. Its fantasy-Orientalist setting has drawn serious criticism, and a number of companies have revised or reconsidered their stagings, which is worth knowing before you go. Watch for: the Kingdom of the Shades, an entrance in which the corps repeats a single phrase down a ramp — one of the most extraordinary sustained images in classical ballet.
Plotless works, for when you want to see what ballet can do
9. Serenade (Balanchine, 1934, to Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings). The first ballet Balanchine made in America, built partly out of what happened in rehearsal, including a dancer arriving late and another falling. No story, about half an hour, and completely legible on a first viewing. If a mixed bill you are considering opens with this, buy the ticket.
10. Jewels (Balanchine, 1967). A full evening in three parts — Emeralds to Fauré, Rubies to Stravinsky, Diamonds to Tchaikovsky — each with a different style, mood, and palette. It gives you a full-length evening and a mixed bill at once, which makes it an unusually efficient way to find out which kind of ballet you respond to. Watch for: the jolt when Rubies starts.
After these
Once these feel familiar, the next step is contemporary repertoire — living choreographers making new work on these companies. New pieces are usually programmed inside mixed bills, so you get something known alongside something unknown. That is the cheapest possible way to take a risk on a night at the theater.
Ready to book? How to Choose Seats at a Ballet Performance covers which section suits which of these works, How to Get Cheap Ballet Tickets in the US covers paying less for them, and Ballet Etiquette: What to Wear and When to Clap covers the evening itself.
Schedules and prices can change. Please confirm on the official site before booking. Spotted an error? Let me know.