ENO's modern take on "A Masked Ball" cannot have escaped your attention: men on potties and homosexual gang rape etc etc. This artilce discusses what audiences want for their classics and discusses dance and the classical/modern divide:<P><B>Making a crisis out of a drama <BR>Critics always make a fuss about radical retellings of the classics</B><P>Mark Lawson<BR>Guardian<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The reason that dance manages to sidestep the imposition of preservation orders on the classics is that ballet is formally divided into two styles - classical and modern - with choreographers and audiences tending to opt for one or the other. In theatre and opera, ticket-buyers frequently observe the same divide - booking for Mozart but not for Birtwistle - but directors move between new work and venerated texts, often bringing to the latter the techniques of the former. Unless this expectation of a conservative approach to old works can be eradicated, operas and theatres will suffer these fusses. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4361769,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A><P>I would be interested to hear what people think. Do they love classical ballet and never see modern or contemporary dance? Do they love modern ballet and avoid Don Q like the plague? I read all your reviews and comments but I don't know your preferences and your viewing statistics!! I would like to know if you think there IS a classical/modern divide.<P>