Michel Fokine

As young dancers, they were best friends and fierce rivals. Deedee left the stage for marriage and motherhood, while Emma would become an international ballet icon. But when Deedee's teenage daughter is invited to join Emma's dance company and begins an affair with a young Russian star, the two women are forced to confront the choices they've made, the resentments they've hidden and the emotional truths they must face at the turning point.

Les Sylphides is a short, non-narrative ballet blanc to piano music by Frédéric Chopin, selected and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov.

A truly remarkable New Year’s Eve in St Petersburg’s fabled Mariinsky Theatre, with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky (ex-Kirov) Ballet. It was at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg that the ballet The Sleeping Beauty premiered in 1890, with a score by Tchaikovsky and choreography by Marius Petipa. This New Year’s Eve programme revolves around Act III, in which Princess Aurora is brought out of her long sleep by the prince of her dreams and marries him. In addition, prima ballerina Uliana Lopatkina dances Camille Saint-Saëns’ famous Dying Swan, first performed by Anna Pavlova. In conclusion the soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre’s Young Singers’ Academy perform the finale of Rossini’s Journey to Rheims in a joyous celebration of the coming of the New Year.

Anna Pavlova was recorded dancing The Dying Swan in a 1925 silent film, to which sound is often added. The short ballet has influenced interpretations of Odette in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, particularly during the parting of the lovers in the first lakeside scene.

Starvinsky's ballets The Firebird and The Rite of Spring in the restored original choresography by Michel Fokine (Firebird) and Vaslav Nijinsky (Rite of Spring).

A studio performance of the ballet Les Sylphides by Michel Fokine, first broadcast on 3 April 1953 and starring Alicia Markova, John Field, Violetta Elvin and Svetlana Beriosova.