THE QUESTIONABLE TOURIST BALLETS

St. Petersburg is the home of great ballet, home of famed Russian dance companies. “Unfortunately, virtually every package tour of St. Petersburg feels the cultural necessity of including a ballet performance in its offering – rather as Paris tours once felt equally compelled to provide the Folies Bergere, or Le Moulin Rouge and Pigalle. But the tourists’ ballets, as I recently discovered to my cost, are occasionally questionable. – New York Post