On the day of the premiere she goes to the theatre in the early morning. As the solo performance is so near she feels very nervous and wonders whether everything will be all right that night. She starts making exercises with the orther girls.
When the dancers leave she continues to exercise by herself and tries out her solo part. She does not do well and feels very tired. She sits down on a bench in the corner of the ballet room and thinks she needs some rest; so she lies down and falls asleep.
She dreams she is standing in the ballet room, trying to rehearse her solo dance performance. But she does not succeed to dance as she wants and she gets more and more nervous. Suddenly she makes a wrong movement and falls down; her ankle is bruised and so she cannot dance at all.
She is desperate and quite lonely because her dream goes up in smoke. She is now surrounded by a group of doctors, who examine her ankle, put on a bandage and tell her to rest. When the doctors disappear a gang of little devils come into the ballet room; they tease our poor dancer and threaten her with little arrows, while they keep dancing and stamping. The ballerina tries to get rid of the little monsters, but in vain. This looks like a real nightmare!
All of a sudden the devils and the pain disappear. She tries to get up and awakes little by little. She now realizes it was only a bad dream. She feels relieved and goes to the dressing room in order to dress for the premiere performance. Her solo performance in the finale of the ballet is a real big success. Her most precious dream has been fulfilled, in spite of or thanks to the nightmare.
View score
