Référence · Top 10

🚩 Top 10 Ballet Red Flags

And now, the wall of shame. These men had ONE job (be normal) and failed spectacularly. Ranked from ‘deserved everything he got’ downwards.

1. 1. Albrecht (Giselle)

   Fake name, fake peasant costume, real fiancée hidden at home — and a sweet girl literally dies of the heartbreak. The Wilis made him do entrechats six until he collapsed, and honestly? He fully deserved all thirty-four of them. 🚩🚩🚩

2. 2. Prince Siegfried (Swan Lake)

   Swore eternal love at the lake, then couldn’t recognise HIS OWN GIRLFRIEND because she showed up in black. The dunce of dunces. Odette deserved a prince with object permanence.

3. 3. Onegin (Onegin)

   Tears up a lovesick teenager’s letter IN HER FACE, kills his best friend in a duel he caused out of pure boredom, then has the nerve to cry when grown-up Tatiana (the former lovesick teenager) rejects him. Karma’s finest hour.

4. 4. James (La Sylphide)

   Abandons his bride ON their wedding day to chase a forest fairy, then accidentally kills the fairy with a cursed scarf. Ends with no bride, no fairy, no dignity. A cautionary tale in a kilt.

5. 5. Solor (La Bayadère)

   A special guest star, because this list demanded him. Solor is the warrior hero of La Bayadère (Petipa, 1877, set in a fantasy India), and he swears eternal love — over sacred fire, mind you — to the beautiful temple dancer Nikiya. He is then engaged to the Rajah’s daughter by approximately teatime, stands there while Nikiya is murdered with a snake hidden in a flower basket, and only feels bad AFTERWARDS, in a full opium dream where thirty-two identical ghost girls in white descend a ramp (the ‘Kingdom of the Shades’ — one of the most famous scenes in all of ballet, born entirely from one man’s guilty conscience). Imagine needing thirty-two ghosts to work out you did something wrong.

6. 6. Khan Girei (The Fountain of Bakhchisarai)

   Kidnapping a princess from her own engagement party is NOT a love language. The crying fountain afterwards doesn’t un-kidnap anyone, sir.

7. 7. Claude Frollo (La Esmeralda)

   The original ‘if I can’t have her, no one can’. Not so much a red flag as an entire red parade with matching banners.

8. 8. Franz (Coppélia)

   Coppélia isn’t in this book either, but Franz forced my hand. It’s ballet’s first great comedy (1870, with music by Delibes you’d recognise instantly), about a village boy — Franz — who is engaged to the brilliant, sparky Swanilda. Then he spots a mysterious girl reading on old Dr Coppélius’s balcony and decides he’s in love with HER instead. The girl is a DOLL. A wind-up mechanical DOLL, Franz. Swanilda has to dress up as the doll and pretend to come alive just to show him how ridiculous he’s being. She marries him anyway, which is honestly more than he deserves. Your fiancée should never lose to a toy, sir.

9. 9. Birbanto (Le Corsaire)

   Mutinies against his own pirate best friend over treasure. Snakes get a bad name because of men like this.

10. 10. Prince Désiré (The Sleeping Beauty)

    Shows up a hundred years late, contributes one (1) kiss, takes ALL the credit for the rescue. The Lilac Fairy did everything. We see you, Désiré.