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[10:24] Get Some Culture Up Ya - or Kynan and Shona Go To The Ballet
This is a little bit old news but I'm whittling down my pile of "Thangs to be blogged" and this one has been sitting here for a couple of weeks now.
We went to the ballet because Shona won subsidised seats to the Royal Opera House - they cost us £10 each but if we'd been actually paying they'd have cost about £80!!! (Sorry I felt the multiple punctuation marks really were appropriate - that's about $A200)
The seats were actually pretty good, if you go to the ROH Seating Plan site you can see just how good they were (and I presume still are). The seats we occupied were "Orchestra Stalls", seats 18 and 19 - you can click on seat 21 and see our view of the stage - I think having this functionality is GREAT idea!
Anyways, we saw two ballets, in three parts - The Lesson and La Sylphide.
The first 30 minutes was devoted to The Lesson, a "modern" ballet. The Lesson was actually adapted for ballet in 1963 by Flemming Flindt from a play written by a bloke named Eugene Ionesco in 1951. I liked it the most of the evenings entertainment. In a nutshell, the story is about a teacher who becomes extremely disturbed by their pupils inability to understand what they are being taught, with some unfortunate consequences for the student. the actual play seems to fall into the Absurdist category, one with which I'm not familiar but I'll be doing a bit of reading around the subject as it looks quite interesting.
The Lesson was followed by a 30 minute break, the first half of "La Sylphide", another 30 minute break and the grand finale of "La Sylphide". La Sylphide was more of your traditional ballet and involved a damnsite more prancing. It was written way back in 1832 in France and is set in Scotland. The story is that some Scottish guy (James if you must know) is getting married and, the night before his marriage he spies a forest nymph and, completely besotted, screws up the big day by sodding off into the forest chasing the nymph. Blergh.
As I am an uncultured buffoon I was not particularly enamoured of the ballet. Although I can certainly appreciate the athletiscism involved in the activity, the substance does not particularly appeal. Although I went in with an open mind, I came out with the opinion that ballet dancers (is there a plural/group noun for them? Balletisists seems a trifle clumsy.) are for the most part egotistical prats. Watching ballet was like watching a cross between slowed down mime and synchronised swimming, but without the thrill that the performers could drown at any second (despite my fervent wish that they would, somehow). I was also deprived of the opportunity to watch the orchestra as they were hidden in a pit!
The bright side of the evening came when, after interval two, the curtains open the evil witch, Madge, cooking up a storm in a "steaming" cauldron. It seems the providers of said "steam" were a little to enthusiastic in their provision and when the scene change came from Madges cave to the forest, the entire stage was slicked with some kind of oily residue. This made it completely impossible to dance upon! The curtains dropped dramatically after one of the nymphs/sylphs nearly broke her ankle and someone frantically cleansed the stage somehow. Fifteen minutes later the curtain arose and the forest magically re-appeared.....I waited, secretly hoping for disaster. The last half of the show was immensley more enjoyable because whatever they'd used to clean the stage had REALLY cleaned it. Every step was accompanied with a tiny tearing sound, as if the entire stage had been covered with upside-down masking tape.
The straw that broke the camels back came when the person who dies (finally) finished cavorting around the stage and dropped dead. Down came the curtain, up came the curtain for crew bowing/curtseying and general audience appreciation. Now, I've been to the theatre before, I've been to a lot of live gigs, I'm familiar with the whole concept of showing ones appreciation by clapping. I've expressed my dislike of the whole "encore" trend that seems to be de rigueur these days; At least if a band makes you clap and carry on for five or ten minutes they come back and play you another song or two. These ballet prats sort of pulled an "encore" but instead of actually DOING anything they just stood there lapping up the adulation.
First we clapped for the whole cast, then each section (leading couple, principals, sylphs and Scotts) and the curtain came down. I was reasonably happy at this stage. Then, someone pulled up the corner of the curtain and the leading man pranced back out and we all clapped for him for a little while, he shoots back in and the leading lady came out and we repeated the whole clappy thing. She ducks back in and they spring back out together for a bit more clappy-clappy before the principal cast memberst came out for their shot and then everyone gets some flowers. They all disappeared again and then the whole sodding bunch of them pour out at which point certain crazed individuals in the crowd, unable to curb their enthusiasm, start up with the standing ovation. I was no longer clapping at this stage but muttering imprecations under my breath. The travesty continued although when the conductor came out next I clapped for him. He was yanked off stage so the leading couple could score another hit before the curtain finally closed for good.