I made an impulsive decision this weekend. On my two days off last week, I was driving around town with Mina when I saw an ad on the bus in front of me - Pacific Northwest Ballet's Swan Lake - April 9-19th. I looking at the date on my phone - April 17th. Two more days only. Usually, I am cautious and hesitant about making decisions. Something simple like - what should we eat for dinner? - takes hours to decide! Ridiculous! So on Saturday evening (yep, it took 24 hrs to decide), I went on the website and ordered my ticket. I'm so happy that I did! The ballet was absolutely wonderful. I was pretty certain that I would fully enjoy the musical aspect - listening to a live orchestra is something I miss doing since I left Toronto and since I graduated from University (no more discounted student prices!) - so this was my primary reason for going. I wasn't expecting the ballet to be as enjoyable as it was but I was really captivated by the ballerina's dancing. The way she was able to dance like a swan, the motions of her arms, the graceful movements across the stage - I was watching a human swan on stage. When studying music, I always found it fascinating that composers were able to write music to invoke images of a person, place or thing (called leitmotif). As an example, listen to The Flight of the Bumble Bee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The parts of Swan Lake that were most moving occured when the ballerina's dancing (like a swan) matched the leitmotif that came out in the music (music to invoke an image of a swan). Being able to enjoy the fullness of that with your eyes and your ears and mix that all in with your imagination was a mind-blowing experience!
Well, I would definitely recommend seeing it. Unfortunately if you are the Seattle area, Swan Lake is no longer showing but it comes back every couple of years. Next year they will be showing Sleeping Beauty - another one of Tchaichovsky's famous ballets. I will consider going to that one too :). I definitely enjoyed Swan Lake more than the Nutcracker - it's a bit more mature and the pessimist in me enjoys the tragic ending of Swan Lake.
3 comments:
what? there's a tragic ending? thanks Ames for the spoiler. hehehe. j/k .i went to watch Cinderella here in Toronto, and it too was beautiful. It was, however, rather modern, so i think it would be nice to watch something as classic as Swan Lake. You and I should watch a show in Toronto one day. I can get tickets for 25 bucks per ticket since i'm still a student! :) yay!
everyone must know that swan lake has a tragic ending! Actually, I read that there are a wide range of endings to swan lake, some of them are "happily ever after" endings but the original swan lake was intended to be tragic.
something about tragedy appeals more to me than happy endings...hmm...
aha!
i did not know. hehehe
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