Ballet Stories Quiz / Test | For Children

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. This ballet is about a beautiful princess named Aurora, who is cursed by a fairy and sleeps for a hundred years. A prince's kiss wakes her up for the happy ending.

Answer: The Sleeping Beauty

"The Sleeping Beauty" was composed by a Russian man named Tchaikovsky and was first performed in Moscow in 1890. It retells a fairy tale that is hundreds of years old. One of the really beautiful scenes in this ballet is in Act I. Aurora has her sixteenth birthday party and dances with four princes just before falling asleep for a hundred years.

2. Which ballet would you be watching if you saw ugly stepsisters, Prince Charming, and a lovely girl with only one shoe?

Answer: Cinderella

The ballet music for "Cinderella" was written by a Russian composer named Prokofiev. The first Cinderella was a beautiful and famous Russian ballerina named Galina Ulanova, who was also the first Juliet in the ballet of "Romeo and Juliet". Wasn't she lucky?

3. This ballet is usually performed at Christmastime because it has a big Christmas tree in it. A little girl named Clara sees her Christmas toy come to life as she is taken away to the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Answer: The Nutcracker

"The Nutcracker" is one of the most famous ballets of all time. It was written by Tchaikovsky. Did you know that sometimes ballets are changed over the years and performed differently? Tchaikovsky called the heroine of "The Nutcracker" Clara, but other versions of the ballet call her Marie. Sometimes the Sugar Plum Fairy is in the ballet, and sometimes she is left out. Each version is beautiful in its own way, though.

4. The ballet "Don Quixote" is from 1869. It is about a man of wonder and imagination who can't really tell fantasy from reality, and who imagines he is a noble knight searching for a fair lady. The ballet is from a book by Miguel de Cervantes and is set in Barcelona. What kind of costumes and scenery would you expect to see in a production of "Don Quixote"?

Answer: Spanish

Although many ballets were written by Russians, they are set in locations all over the world. "Don Quixote" is set in Spain. Its composer was Ludwig Minkus, and its original choreographer was perhaps the greatest the world of ballet has ever known, Marius Petipa.

5. Not all ballets come from fairy tales or are about fictional characters. In 1938, an American man named Aaron Copland wrote which of the following ballets? (Hint: It's about an American outlaw who was young.)

Answer: Billy the Kid

Aaron Copland liked to write about American themes. In addition to "Billy the Kid", he also wrote a ballet called "Rodeo" and another called "Appalachian Spring".

6. There have been many ballet versions of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Most of them use music from a composer named Mendelssohn. Who wrote the original story that all of these ballets are based on?

Answer: William Shakespeare

The original form of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a play by Shakespeare. The idea for the story of a ballet can come from many sources: Fairy tales, like those of Andersen and the Grimm brothers, plays, short stories, or even novels. For example, Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper" has been turned into a ballet.

7. "Firebird" is a beautiful ballet based on an old fairy tale. The main character is Prince Ivan, also called Ivan Tsarevitch, who has to fight an evil sorcerer with the help of the Firebird. At the end of the ballet, Prince Ivan becomes Tsar. What country is this fairy tale and ballet from?

Answer: Russia

Have you noticed how many of the classic ballets are Russian? "Firebird" was composed by Igor Stravinsky and the original choreography (dance movements) was by Mikhail Fokine. It was first performed in Paris in 1910.

8. The title characters of both "Petrouchka" and "Copp�lia" are not human. What are they? (Hint: Pinocchio was one too.)

Answer: Puppets

Copp�lia was a life-size puppet that a lonely toymaker created and pretended was his daughter. Unfortunately, a village man falls in love with her! Everything gets sorted out by the end of the ballet, though. "Petrouchka" is about a clown puppet who wants to be alive. It was composed by Igor Stravinsky. "Copp�lia", which is a much more lighthearted ballet, was composed by a French man named Leo Delibes.

9. "Romeo and Juliet" is a play by Shakespeare that was turned into a ballet in 1936 by the Russian composer Prokofiev. It's about two young people who want to marry each other but whose families are enemies. Does "Romeo and Juliet" have a happy ending?

Answer: No

Unfortunately, both Romeo and Juliet kill themselves when their families won't let them get married. When Prokofiev first wrote this ballet, he thought that the ending would be very difficult to show on stage because "living people can dance, the dying cannot". He figured out a way around that, though!

(You can read about Prokofiev and his troubles with "Romeo and Juliet" at http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/1891/op64.html)

10. One of the most famous classical ballets tells the story of the beautiful Odette, who was transformed into a white swan by an evil magician. Only the true love of a man could save her, but this ballet does not have a happy ending. Which ballet is it?

Answer: Swan Lake

Again we must mention the brilliant Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, because he composed the music for "Swan Lake" too! At the end of the ballet, Odette and Prince Siegfried both die and are carried away across the lake in a swan boat together. "Swan Lake" was first performed in 1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. "Bolshoi" means "Big", and to this day "Swan Lake" is one of the most popular ballets ever.

I hope you have enjoyed this quiz. If you would like to learn more about the stories of the great ballets, I recommend you read the wonderful books "Dance Me a Story" by Jane Rosenberg and/or "The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories" by Jane Yolen, both of which are for kids. For adults, "101 Stories of the Great Ballets" by the great George Balanchine is a must for anyone who has ever been enthralled by the magic of ballet.

Source: Author LilahDeDah

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor minch before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Ballet Stories Trivia Quiz

Did you know that the great ballets each tell a story through dance without using any words at all? See if you can name the ballet these tales are from!

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