Seven Deadly Sins, Ballet-Style

The Stepmother in Alexei Ratmansky's Cinderella is like a stormy weather front, erupting in squalls and lightning strikes. We first see her laying into her hairdresser, then pummelling her husband out of the house and kicking Cinderella's treasured portrait of her dead mother to shreds. And that's just in Act I! Approach with caution ...

When it comes to blind fury, the Queen of Hearts in Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland^© could give Cinderella's Stepmother a neck-and-neck run for her money (although probably best not to mention necks around this axe-happy despot). However, when it comes to deadly sins, she's a bit of an all-rounder, with a particular penchant for tart-guzzling gluttony.

Few ballet characters sizzle up the stage like Carmen and Don José in Roland Petit's Carmen. But a few nights is all they'll have: Carmen has a flinty heart and a roving eye, and José's insanely jealous. A bad combination, as it turns out.

The worldly, world-weary Onegin in John Cranko's ballet is unmoved when naïve Titania writes him a letter declaring her love. He haughtily rejects her, even tearing the letter up before her eyes. You know what they say about pride and falls ... before the end of this story, Onegin will be on his knees begging Titania to love him.

Five minutes after getting out of bed with her beloved, Kenneth Macmillan's Manon meets a man who waves some diamonds in her face. And just like that, she's off. Her taste for the high life brings her morally low, but it's her love for that guy she just can't forget that really gets her into trouble.

What's lazier than sleeping for 100 years? At least the Princess Aurora in David McAllister's The Sleeping Beauty has a deluxe glass boudoir in which to dream away a century.