Mick Hartley

That Peter Pan trigger warning was just the start:

A ballet has been given a trigger warning over the on-stage death of a magic puppet.

Russian dance works set to music by Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky have been deemed “potentially distressing” by academics at the University of Aberdeen.

The 1911 ballet Petrushka now comes with a trigger warning alerting students to the violent death of one lead character, although the note states that “the character in question is actually a puppet”.

The piece about a trio of magical puppets being brought to life is not the only balletic work which academics have found to be potentially upsetting, with the Scheherazade and The Rite of Spring given trigger warnings.

For the 1910 ballet Scheherazade, based on music by Rimsky-Korsakov, students are prewarned that the work “concludes with a murder and a suicide, both by stabbing” although “the action is implied rather than graphic (there is no blood!)”.

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, which shocked Parisian audiences at its 1913 premiere, may still shock students as it “famously concludes with a young woman dancing herself to death”.