A lesson in false advertising: "Premier rang" being at the same level as the "first balcony", "en face de la scène" (in front of the stage). Actually, not: premier rang tickets, 10 euros but bought for 50, are at the very top level and on the side. False advertising, I tell you. I suppose it's my karma check for having essentially bought black market scalper tickets to Swan Lake at the Paris Opera, but I have no regrets -- there were NO tickets at the last minute, not one. Scalper or nothin'.
Thankfully, however, there were some random French people on the stage yakking about something - whatever it was, I'm sure it was important - and the girl checking tickets got bored and left her post -- just long enough for my friend and I to bust ass around and sneak into the only empty seats in the section. We checked later -- 55 euros the place. Muhahaha.
So this was the Rudolph Nuryev version of Swan Lake, danced by the best ballet dancers in Paris. It was beautiful. Sometimes actually moving -- but those moments were rare.
Ballets -- original ones, that is -- never cease to amaze me at their fluffiness. The entire first act is composed of a bunch of people onstage in fancy outfits cavorting about. The premise is that they're invited to the birthday party of Prince Siegfried. And that's it. They're just there, saying hello. The girls are trying to interest Siegfried, who is either really sleepy, really bored, or just really limpid. At least, he was in my production. He liked to wander around with his hand on his chest deferring to people.
And then there's a random trio with a few solos, for no other apparent reason than to showcase a few dancers. All the ladies disappear to change into swans, and the guys have some dude time, as long as you can call dude time prancing about in pinwheels on stage. And we wonder where the stereotypes come from?! My god.
I have to admit, the swan corps was pretty impressive, a hell of a lot of pretty female dancers who do exactly the same thing at the same time. The dancer who did Odette/Odile was really good, though she could have been more evil. Siegfried immediately promises to marry her, le sigh, but hey, you gotta move the story on.
The guy who danced Rothbart, the evil sorcerer, was extraordinary. He had a finish to his movements that was just incredible, a sort of presence and energy on the stage that pretty much everyone else was lacking. The only time that I was interested by what Siegfried was doing onstage was when Rothbart tells him he just promised himself to Odile, not Odette, and you see Odette flapping away in agony.
Siegfried actually brought himself to care about something, and stumbled about on the stage in appropriate agony, which I actually understood. However, once the swans came back and it came time to say goodbye to Odette, he was back to his fluff self -- though she did a pretty good of being agonized.
Okay, there are certain steps you have to do, I understand that. But I thought it would have been entirely possible to endow the exact same movements with a little more...story, a little more emotion. So, here my thought process during the ending scene, when Rothbart drags Odette away:
Man, if I were directing this, this would be so much better. Oh, come on, Siegfried, he's dragging away your girlfriend! Aren't you upset? Why are you still being so polite to let him dance with your girl? Come on, be angry, damn it! Now Rothbart is dancing with you, doesn't that make you angry? You probably want to kill him! That's right, try to kill him! Go ahead, Siegfried, just try to emote!!
Or something like that.
I did, I'll have you know, enjoy myself thoroughly. We got out fairly late and I had a request for a RDV not too long afterwards -- say an hour -- and I REALLY wanted to change clothes. All you have to know is, I was barely 8 minutes late, and I went from the Bastille to Alèsia to the Marais in an hour, including a full change of clothes. That's hard to do, by the way.
My secret?
Running in heels.
I thought as I was doing so, Wow, I have become a true Parisian woman.
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