Tag: culture

19th “thing” achieved: 32. Visit the Ballet

Tutus and Tights

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.

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Beautiful surroundings

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).

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‘A wonder’: Xander Parish, Viktoria Tereshkina and members of the Mariinsky corps de ballet in Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Observer

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.

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Parish and Viktoria Tereshkina in ‘Swan Lake’ with the Mariinsky Ballet at the Royal Opera House (Jennie Walton)

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.

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© Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters
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Viktoria Tereshkina and Vladimir Shklyarov in Swan Lake © Photo by Natasha Razina 2014

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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15th “thing” achieved: 35. Visit the Opera

I’m all cultured and stuff!

Growing up, I always thought that Opera was too high brow for me. A pastime for the posh or pretentious, expensive, hard to understand, and dull. It’s often in another language and even when in English the sounds are stretched and rounded out in such a way that half the time you wouldn’t recognise the words. Or that’s what I always thought.

Over the years, my attitude has changed. I appreciate the sounds (though I still can’t make out the words) and the technical excellence from a truly great singer is a joy to behold. So I decided to expand my cultural horizons and try an opera for myself!

My friend Kim is a professional singer and happened to be taking part in a  production of La Bohème, one of the classics, being performed by the Black Cat Opera Company. Tickets at Guildford’s Electric Theatre were a steal at £22 each (you’re looking at up to 10 times that at the Royal Opera House!) so I booked for me and Natalie, and eagerly awaited the performance.

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Ready to be cultured!

On the night, Nat couldn’t make it so Chris stood in as a perfect substitute. We arrived to discover we had scored seats on the front row. We were just a couple of feet away from the stage! I looked up and was relieved to note that there was a screen at the top of the stage that showed subtitles, translating the Italian words into English, so I could follow the plot.

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The stage is set
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This is how close I was to the stage

The stage was set, and out walked the musicians. In the big performances they would have a full orchestra but that would have been overkill in such an intimate venue, so instead we had simply a pianist and conductor. That was all we needed! The lights dimmed, and the opera started. Set in the 1840’s, it follows the story of a group of young bohemians (artists, writers etc) living in poverty in Paris. The staging was superb and the costumes were fantastic – they adopted a Steampunk style which worked really well and helped to bring a great modern twist to a clearly traditional setting!

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The beginning (photo by Doug Breakwell)
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Introducing the bohemians (photo by Doug Breakwell)
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Boy meets girl (photo by Doug Breakwell)
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Going “out out” – it all kicks off (photo by Doug Breakwell)
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Heartbreaking (photo by Doug Breakwell)

The singers were just amazing. I looked them up in the programme and was impressed to see that they are all critically acclaimed singers that have performed in world class productions.  I was completely blown away by the quality of music and the acting sucked me in until I felt like I was part of the story. I cried copiously at the end and could barely see when they came for the curtain call!

Before we left, I got chatting to the old couple next to me, they told me that they love coming to see these productions. They clearly love the music and go to a lot of performances, but they were not snooty or pretentious about it at all. When I arrived at the theatre I was really pleased that it wasn’t too pompous and whilst people weren’t scruffy, there was a definite feeling of casualness that pervaded the audience. This wasn’t a bunch of posh people strutting around like peacocks, but a group of music lovers that had come out to see a great piece of drama acted and sung before them.

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Chris and I surrounded by casual crowd of music lovers

I felt incredibly privileged to have experienced such a fantastic production and I can guarantee that I will be going again. I’d like to experience all the pomp and circumstance of the Royal Opera House just once, but I have to say, the intimacy of a small venue, ability to be so close to the action, quality of production (not to mention cost and convenience) – all mean that I will be looking out for more local performances.

I’ll definitely be following the Black Cat Opera company for future productions and suspect I might become hooked on this opera malarkey!

10/10, would go again!

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End of a brilliant night, with Kim and her brother

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