400 Years Of Ballet Trivia Quiz

"Il ballo delle ingrate" ("The Ballet of the Ungrateful Women"), composed by Claudio Monteverdi and first performed in 1608, is one of the earliest ballets whose music has survived. It is in some ways a cross between opera and ballet, having sung roles as well as danced ones.

It was composed for the wedding of Francesco Gonzaga (son of Monteverdi's patron, Duke Vincenzo of Mantua) and Margaret of Savoy. The "Ungrateful Women" of the title are those who rejected love while alive and are now eternally miserable in the afterlife.

The ballet "Don Juan, or the Stone Guest's Banquet", was composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-87) and first performed in 1762 at Vienna's Theater am Kärntnertor. It is one of the earliest ballets where the dance is fully integrated into the action, making it one of the first narrative ballets.

The story is based on the famous legend of the notorious libertine Don Juan, in particular the 1665 play by Molière.

Adolphe Adam's 1841 ballet "Giselle" had its premiere in Paris at the Salle Le Peletier, with the famous Italian ballerina Carlotta Grisi in the title role. It was an immediate success, and productions followed at other major cities in Europe and the United States. It remains popular to this day.

The story tells of a young peasant girl, Giselle, who falls in love with a disguised nobleman named Albrecht. When his true identity is revealed, she goes mad and dies of grief. Her spirit joins the Wilis, who are the ghosts of young women who were betrayed by their lovers. They try to force Albrecht to dance to his death, but Giselle's love saves him, and her spirit is allowed to rest in peace.

"Coppélia" is a three-act ballet composed by the French composer Léo Delibes (1836-91) and first performed in 1870 at the Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra in Paris. Unlike many classical ballets, its plot is light-hearted and has a happy ending. Modern productions are generally based on the version later choreographed by Marius Petipa for the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet in Russia.

The title character is a life-sized mechanical doll created by the mysterious Dr Coppélius. A young man named Franz becomes infatuated with it, much to the annoyance of his fiancée, Swanhilda. Dr Coppélius plans to bring the doll to life by transferring Franz's spirit into it. Fortunately, Swanhilda discovers the plot, saves Franz, and the ballet ends with their wedding.

The nineteenth-century three-act romantic ballet is often considered to have reached its peak with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "The Sleeping Beauty", which had its premiere in 1889 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. It was choreographed by the famous ballet master Marius Petipa, and most modern productions are based on his original version.

The ballet is based on Charles Perrault's fairy tale and broadly follows the familiar story of Princess Aurora, who on her sixteenth birthday falls into a deep sleep due to a curse placed on her by the wicked fairy Carabosse. One hundred years later, the good Lilac Fairy leads Prince Désiré to the sleeping Aurora, and he wakes her with a kiss. They marry and live happily ever after.

Igor Stravinsky composed his 1913 ballet "The Rite of Spring" for Serge Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes company, following its successful performances of "The Firebird" (1910) and "Petrushka" (1911). The ballet depicts a series of pagan rituals celebrating the arrival of spring, culminating in a sacrificial dance.

On the first night, the combination of Stravinsky's savage and dissonant music with Vaslav Nijinsky's jagged choreography famously caused a sensation, with many of the audience booing and shouting throughout the 40-minute performance. The piece has gone on to become a classic of 20th-century ballet, as well as having a separate life in the concert hall.

Sergei Prokofiev's "Cinderella" is a full-length ballet first performed in 1945 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. It is in many ways a return to the tradition of the romantic three-act classical ballet, telling a fairy-tale story padded out with various characterful dances for the corps de ballet. Of course, like all composers living in Russia during the Stalinist period, Prokofiev was forced to write music that met the approval of the Soviet authorities, or risk denunciation and worse.

"Cinderella" follows the traditional story closely, and Prokofiev effectively combines traditionally romantic melodies for Cinderella and her Prince with entertaining dances for the two stepsisters (who are often preformed by male dancers in comic "travesti" style).

As a composer for the stage, Benjamin Britten is rightly renowned for his operas, but his single full-length ballet, "The Prince of the Pagodas", deserves to be better known. It was commissioned by London's Royal Ballet and first performed by the company at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1957, with choreography by John Cranko.

Like so many classic ballets, the plot is a magical fairy story, in which the beautiful Princess Belle Rose is aided by the titular Prince to defeat her wicked older sister Belle Epine. The eastern setting of the story is enhanced by Britten's incorporation of the sounds of Balinese Gamelan music into his score, including much use of percussion.

The prolific British composer Peter Maxwell Davies wrote several dance works, including two full-length ballets for the Royal Danish Ballet. The second of these, "Caroline Mathilde", was first performed by them in 1991 in a production choreographed by the famous Danish choreographer Flemming Flindt.

The plot is a tragic love story based on the true events around the marriage of the English princess Caroline Mathilde (the sister of George III), who in 1766 at the age of 15 was packed off to Denmark to wed the 17-year-old Danish king, Christian VII. Unfortunately, Christian was schizophrenic and their marriage was unhappy, leading her into an affair with the court physician, Struensee. When this was discovered, Struensee was executed and Caroline Mathilde separated from her children and sent into exile.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is a full-length ballet with an original score by the English composer Joby Talbot (born 1971). It was first performed in February 2011 by London's Royal Ballet (which commissioned the work jointly with the National Ballet of Canada), in a production choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon.

The ballet follows the episodic plot of Lewis Carroll's original story, including familiar characters such as the White Rabbit, the March Hare, the Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat. It proved to be a popular addition to the Royal Ballet's repertoire, and productions followed in Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Australia and Japan.