The Judgement of Paris

The Judgement of Paris is a parody on a famous story from antiquity: a young man, Paris, is asked to choose who among three goddesses, Juno, Venus and Minerva, is the most beautiful. A golden apple is her prize. Unlike the myth, Antony Tudor’s original choreography sets the ballet’s narrative in a dive bar with three harlots displaying their charms to the modern Paris, now a customer in the bar. Paris makes his choice from among the harlots and chooses Venus. But before Paris can fall into her arms, he stumbles drunkenly onto the floor and is promptly stripped of his valuables by the ‘goddesses’. The narrative’s clever twists give the work’s title a prescient double meaning: ‘The Paris Judgement’ being equally appropriate. Antony Tudor’s choreography sets seven numbers from Weill’s The Threepenny Opera including The Ballad of Mack the Knife and Pirate Jenny. The ballet was premiered in London in 1938 and revived by American Ballet Theater for performances at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 2008. It awaits its premiere in continental Europe.