1999 Poll entries Last Years Poll Results

No shock results this year, after a season which seems to have been dominated for most people by the Bolshoi's London visit.

Best production overall: The Bolshoi's Don Quixote
...by a long way, with the Royal Ballet's Giselle in second place.

Best new production: Mark Morris's Sandpaper Ballet, shown at Sadler's Wells by the San Francisco Ballet

San Francisco Ballet's 'Sandpaper Ballet'
photographer Lloyd Englert

Best revival: Ashton's Ondine for the Royal Ballet
...again, by a long way; runner-up was the Bolshoi's Don Quixote.

Best staging: A tie between the Bolshoi's Don Quixote, which seems to be the year's big hit, and the Royal Ballet's Opening Gala,
...Ondine and The Turn of the Screw jointly came next.

Best home company: The Royal Ballet
...perhaps surprisingly, as we saw less of them than usual; the Birmingham Royal Ballet came second, though a long way behind.

Best visiting company: The Bolshoi
...overwhelmingly, though San Francisco Ballet had good support in second place.

Best male dancer: Carlos Acosta
...in a much more widely spread vote than last year, whose runaway winner Irek Mukhamedov this year came second, with Johann Kobborg and Jonathan Cope tying for third place.

Best female dancer: Nina Ananiashvili
...whose performances with the Bolshoi put her well in the lead; again, last year's winner, Vivian Durante came second, Miyako Yoshida third.

Best partnership: Surprise, surprise: Durante and Mukhamedov
...once more were the favourites; Guillem and Cope came next.

Most promising male dancer: Yohei Sasaki of the Royal Ballet
...finally came out top against hot competition from several of the same company's young men; Inaki Urlezaga came second, and Ricardo Cervera third.

Most promising female dancer: The Royal Ballet's Zenaida Yanowsky
...and once more last year's winner, Mara Galeazzi came second, with Nao Sakuma of BRB in third place. It's interesting that neither Sasaki nor Yanowsky gained a single vote last year!

Worst production: The Bolshoi's Swan Lake
...won this year's wooden spoon very easily, from Arc Dance Company's Don Juan.

In the Special Mentions category most individual votes went to Sarah Wildor as Ondine, but there was strong support also for those already mentioned as category winners and for Guillem, Durante and Yoshida. Several different items from the ROH Opening Gala were picked out for special praise, and both the Bolshoi and the Kirov orchestras gave pleasure.

The Eye Openers section was dominated by the Bolshoi, but at the other end of the scale it's worth recording a couple of votes for Cwmni Ballet Gwent; and two individual performances that attracted attention were those of Lucia Lacarra in SFB's 'The Cage', and the RB's Jonathan Howells in the revival of 'La Fille mal Gardée' - the only dancer nominated for a character role.

There was much less negative comment than last year, indicative I'd guess of the relief everyone felt at seeing the RB back at the Opera House and more or less in one piece. Mats Ek's productions featured several times in the 'worst' and not at all in the 'best' categories; and although there was huge support from the Bolshoi, several of their productions came in for criticism.

This year's prize goes to Eric MacInnis, who voted for 10 out of the 12 winning entries, and one that came in second place - maybe some company would like to employ him as a predictor of the public's taste? Meanwhile, if he'd get in touch with Bruce, a Ballet.co T-shirt will be on its way.

Thanks again to everyone who voted - and by now you should all be keeping notes for our Survey 2000!