When I was a little girl I had one of those jewellery boxes with the clockwork ballerina in it. That was my only frame of reference for ballet. I had never really wanted to be a ballerina and I hadn’t ever seen a ballet on TV or anywhere else for that matter.
In fact, I think my biggest exposure to ballet was comedy parodies like the Dawn French/Darcy Bussell mirror dance or the Morecambe and Wise sketch. Bits of famous tunes taken out of context and used in adverts like Mini Cheddars.
Since learning other forms of dance I’ve become more and more fascinated by this elusive art form, Ballet. The men seem to be made of pure muscle and the women have feet of steel (and waists the size of my arm). I get the technical difficulty but I wanted to understand the beauty and emotion of a full performance.
The Royal Opera House was staging a series of ballets by Mariinsky Ballet company, and Swan Lake was one of them. I booked tickets for me and Natalie, and we got Balcony seats for £90 each which I think was pretty good going! We arrived and drank in the majestic surroundings of the Royal Opera House, and eagerly awaited the performance.
It was absolutely amazing! The set and costumes were fantastic, the orchestra was flawless, and the dancing… wow, the dancing! Choreographed to take up a whole stage my eyes were darting everywhere trying to take in the whole spectacle. The principals were outstanding, and the Jester (played by Yaroslav Baibordin) stole the show with his boundless energy, I really felt like he lifted the whole performance in the first half (although perhaps a little irrelevant to the storyline).
This video gives you a great taste of the performance.
That’s not to say that the two stars weren’t good. I mean, they were phenomenal! The Prince (played by Kimin Kim) didn’t really do much in the first half but when he did his big solo in the third Act my jaw literally dropped. He leaped and seemed suspended in mid-air for ages before landing. Odette (played by Ekaterina Osmolkima) could spin like a top and executed some unbelievable moves.
The set pieces however, were the bits that really blew me away. It felt like the stage was full of hundreds of ballerinas in some of the lake scenes- there was probably 30 or so – and I now finally get the Dance of the Cygnets and how it’s supposed to look. Every single dancer was spot on, moving in total unison, so their pieces made them look like a single unit instead of many individuals. Truly amazing to watch.
What a fantastic experience. My only gripe is that the music relied on acoustics to carry the sound rather than microphones and speakers, and although it certainly wan’t quiet – I heard every note – I did feel a little detached as I missed that feeling of complete immersion that comes with being enveloped by the music to convey the emotion and energy of the scenes. Having said that, I was in the cheap seats so can’t really grumble!
I’ll definitely be going to the ballet again and I would encourage you to give it a go, just once, to see what it’s like. You may well find a new passion you never knew you had!
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