Swan Lake waltz

No Tchaikovsky ballet is complete without a waltz or two – those from Nutcracker or Sleeping Beauty are just as bewitching – but Swan Lake (1877) is probably the best known. It tells the story of Princess Odette, who is turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer. Non-balletomanes, too, got hooked when in 1995 Matthew Bourne’s version (above) replaced the female corps de ballet swans with men. Since then it has been seen all over the world, with its own reference in Billy Elliot . This archetypal Russian waltz is used in the chocolate-boxy Anna Karenina (1997), filmed in St Petersburg. In The Black Swan (2010), two rivals dance Odette and Odile and show that dancing swans are not as nice as they look