We have just returned from seeing Swan Lake and had absolutely the best time! We may be the only people in the theatre who found the evening funny, but...it was hilarious.
We all dressed up and piled into our respective buses (we are on Bus 25, with tour guide Marina, our tour guide for the rest of our time in Russia). Char, exhausted from our tour of the Hermitage earlier in the day, decided to stay behind.
Marina guided the bus through the center of St. Petersburg to the Alexandrinsky Theatre for a performance by the Yacobson Russian State Academic Ballet theatre. Marina said she would meet us outside after the show and we all filed in through this tiny doorway. The theatre was full. We tried to guesstimate how many the thing held, and guess roughly 1,000-1,500. There were almost no ushers. Just a thousand tourists wandering around with tickets all in Russian (in cyrillic script, of course), signs in Russian, and no clue where to go. Marina finally showed up to help and we discovered that we were probably in the best box in the theatre. The "royal box," next to ours, was huge and apparently privately owned, because there was a guard with a big handlebar moustache outside and even though most of the people in the box left at the first intermission, ain't nobody gonna get in that box no how. But where we sat was absolutely perfect. Six of us in our own private box. There are five floors of boxes and all were full.
But the first thing I noticed is that everybody down in the orchestra section had a digital camera and they were all standing around snapping pictures of each other. (And, despite orders to the contrary and alert theatre staff with laser pointers picking out offenders throughout the evening, many continued to snap photos throughout the show. Very bad form! Not only is it annoying to people around you, but flashes can actually be dangerous to the performers, who might happen to catch a flash in his/her eye and momentarily lose focus, which you dan't want when someone is about to leap into the air and into someone's arms...or about to catch someone leaping into the air!)
The show started and first you noticed the orchestra, who were in "civvies." Nobody had dressed for a performance. The percussionist was wearing a t-shirt, several musicians were in white or light colored shirts with no ties. The conductor looked like he had just come from rehearsal. The trumpeter was not very good. Didn't hit any bad notes, but just sloppy. The whole orchestra filed out at the end of Act 2, while the cast were taking their bows.
(notice this is not a performance shot...and I also didn't use flash
(circled section is the orchestra leaving during the bows)
I asked Marina afterwards the name of the company, since it had the feel of a very good school recital. She said that the Yacobsen company was one of the best in Russia and had played all over the world. Well, Honey...this wasn't the A team, by a long shot! Actually, I just checked Google (my connection is VERY slow tonight and I haven't a clue when this will be posted) and learned that they are a very famous ballet SCHOOL who have won international competitions and who are famous for organizing the International Ballet School festival. I feel better--this is what it felt like--a very good school recital.
This isn't to say they weren't good. They were. Some quite good. The jester was outstanding. Sigfried and Odette were excellent, especially Odette. Odile went up on point a couple of times and her ankles wobbled just a bit. Not good. The corps de ballet, especially in Act 1, was sloppy. Looked beautiful, but lacked that crisp precision you associate with Russian ballet. They improved in the second act and the four girls who do the quartet that I love were great.
Production values were quite good, and I loved the costumes, which seemed authentic Russian folk costumes.
I had to laugh because this is obviously a show put on so tourists can see Russians dance ballet, but the Kirov or the Bolshoi it ain't. But it just tickled me greatly because the whole "scene" was just so much fun...and all those folks from the midwest who have never been to a ballet before felt they got their money's worth. (And even though I'm on vacation, I have just "reviewed" it after all!!!)
But now let's back up a tad to the morning, a day I had faced with combined excitement and dread. We all left the boat around 10 a.m., picking up box lunches from the staff as we left.
We were to tour The Hermitage, which I knew was an enormous museum, and, still smarting from my "Ian experiences" of last year, I didn't know if I had the stamina for it. As it turned out, I did. Oh, I huffed and puffed and I sat down a lot (I discovered that the air conditioners are just the right height for sitting, briefly, and they blow cold air on your legs too!) and I used my napkin from Nice a LOT. I was glad when it was finally over, but I even stuck with it to the Impressionists, which some folks opted out of because they had hit the wall.
What a magnificent, opulent building--and what an art collection. Marina told us that in our 3 hours there we had seen about 8% of the collection. Words can't even begin to describe it, but here is a tiny taste:
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I'm currently reading a book called "Madonnas of Leningrad," which tells how volunteers managed to remove all of the paintings from the Hermitage before the Siege of Leningrad and see them safely transported out into the country. The book discusses madonnas specifically and there are certainly a lot of them, but I was surprised to see how many look sad or angry.
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(the one on the far right actually looks like the mother of Damien, the devil-baby!)
So I was really happy to come across this one, where mother and baby both seem to be enjoying each other.
There were also some incredible tables inlayed with mosaics done in incredibly fine pieces of glass.
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The whole thing was just mind-blowing with each room bigger and better than the last. And I finally "understood" (sort of) the movie The Russian Ark, which I thought I hated. Now I want to see it again! Especially when I recognized places like this.
I almost hit the wall before we got to the Impressionists and I saw the stairs I'd have to climb, but we found an elevator and I'm glad I stuck with it because otherwise I would never have seen this Van Gogh of people at the stadium at Arles. I've been to the stadium at Arles! I know exactly where that is!
It was 2 before we got back to the bus and I think we all attacked our lunch boxes and ate while we drove the 20 minutes back to the ship. I came back here, lay down on the bed and was asleep in seconds. Walt went and stood in line to get us on the wait list for the Bolshoi in Moscow and then we joined Mike and Char for dinner up in the Neva Restaurant, one floor up.
It's been a great day! And tomorrow we tour the palace of Catherine the Great in the morning, have a city tour in the afternoon, and see a folk show in the evening. I can't wait!
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