Swan Lake...

[athersgeo]

Well, just got in from the ballet (second time in three months - you watch; it'll be another 18 years before I go to the next!!!). We saw Swan Lake (courtesy of my brother who bought us tickets as a sort of Christmas present) and I have to admit, I'm quite glad that I didn't pay money m'self. The seating was right up in the Gods of the theatre, where we had no leg room at all and were more or less forced to sit at an odd angle, and I have to say that the performers were not quite as good as the perfomers were for Romeo and Juliet. The principle male dancer, in particular, wasn't as good as he could have been (at least twice on some of his jumps he landed and looked as if he was going to fall). The Prima was excellent - she, arguably, was better than any single dancer in Romeo and Juliet - but she was very much head and shoulders above the rest of the cast.

The other thing that didn't particularly sit right with me was the way each dancer at the end of a pas-de-deux/trois/quatre came to the front of stage and took a bow - sort of stepping out of character. The trouble is, it's (without exaggerating) 17/18 years since I last saw Swan Lake so I can't remember whether that's a feature of the ballet in general or just this particular company.

Oh, and the solo violinist was fractionally off key - but that could very easily just have been a function of the heat. Twas ver' warm in the theatre :)

So that was this evening.