For those of you who don't know who he is, he is a principal with the American Ballet Theater (probably the best company in the USA), and the first Non-Russian dancer to dance with the Bolshoi Theater; a principal there as well. I clicked on the link and saw that Marco Spada was playing the following night at 7:30.
I asked my friend jokingly if he wanted to go with me. He said yes with a serious tone. We had heard the horror stories of getting tickets to a ballet at the Bolshoi Theater. Getting tickets the day of was extremely difficult and the odds would not be in our favor. The only tickets that would be available the day of the show would be student tickets which are a great steal at only 100 rubles (about $3.00) but, again, very difficult to get. We had heard that we needed to get to the theater early (around 7 am) to get tickets. It was already 1 am, but we bit the bullet and set our alarm for 6:00.
When we woke we knew, we wanted to go see David Hallberg in the Bolshoi Theater. We quickly dressed and got permission to leave the academy. We arrived at the Bolshoi ticket building to find that it didn't open till 11:00. For four hours, we waited in line having had no breakfast and very little sleep to get our golden tickets. No books, music, games or anything to keep us distracted from the cold and boredom. Finally, we were in the building!
It's no lie, Russians customer service is horrible and the workers were extremely rude! We told the ticket worker with our newly learned Russian words that we wanted tickets to the evening performance. Matinee has guest performers that are not nearly as good and the matinee performance is never as high quality of a performance. Plus, it didn't have David Hallberg. But no, she gave us tickets to the matinee and made us get out without another word. No use complaining; police were in the building.
We had already suffered so much and it was for nothing. But we were determined, we would somehow get tickets to that performance! We quickly went back to the dorm and showered and changed into our evening attire. We rode the metro back to the ticket building to wait in line . . . again. This time we were in the back of the line. Only 60 tickets are given for the students. From 2 o'clock, we went through the torture again. Dress clothing isn't always the warmest thing to wear and were freezing as the sun dropped at 5 o'clock. Toes were numb, nosed and ears burning, people cutting line, we almost gave up. But finally the doors opened again at 5:45 and we were in the building. We knew were going to be cutting it close and we did. We cut it very close.
We received the very last tickets to the performance!
We skipped and jumped out of that building like we had just won a billion dollars!
We went to a hot dog cart near red square and quickly got hot dogs and soda. I never ever tasted anything so exquisite in my life (we hadn't eaten yet that day)! We went to the Theater and were there at 6:30 with plenty of time. Getting into the building was easy and everyone inside was kind and thoughtful (amazing). We found our door with no trouble so we quickly hung our coats up and rented Opera Glasses
Finally, at 7:15, we walked into the Bolshoi Theater for the first time. It's a moment I will never forget. I cannot describe the beauty and richness of the theater. Nor can I completely describe the joy, love, accomplishment and happiness I felt. We found our seats and sure enough, we were in the fourth top ring, second row, last two seats. But again, that did not matter to us. We admired the beautiful chandelier and and art and golden lights as we awaited for the performance to start. (Luckily, there were some empty seats after the doors closed and we were able to change.) After what seemed to be like forever, the lights dimmed and the live orchestra began playing.
And then, the curtain opened and I saw the Bolshoi Theater stage, the stage I felt like I almost knew from watching many many videos of performances on it. We sat in awe as we saw the dancers gracefully and beautifully glide across the huge stage. We saw not only David Hallberg, but many of the dancers I have seen so many times in my ballet video addiction. They are so much better live then they are in video. The dancers who were not playing the lead parts were just as good as the principals! Truly amazing.
It was fortunately a long ballet at 3 acts and we got to see several male solos and, let me say, I have never seen better dancing in my life.
My friend and I agreed we couldn't find one mistake throughout the entire performance.
From anyone.
It was simply perfect. That isn't something we as dancers say very often when criticizing a performance. Especially a 3 act Ballet!
After 3 hours of bliss, the curtain closed and the audience began clapping. The audience clapped for a very long time, the dancers came out at least 7 or 8 times to bow. By the last time they came to bow, many people had left, and the backstage had already cleaned up the instruments and the ushers had finished picking up garbage. But the last 1/8 of the audience didn't want it to end. It was wonderful to see how much the people love and respect their ballet dancers. David Hallberg even waved at my friend and I one of the times! But finally it was over and it was time to go home.
 |
| It is over, but we don't want to leave! |
 |
| Isaac and Janos after watching ballet perfection: David Hallberg!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment