Ballet

It's so good!!! Or at least, good ballet is so good. Admittedly, I have also been to ones that have been slightly painful. It is definitely an acquired taste. There is a certain set of sign language that you just sort of learn by watching ballet and doing it which is invaluable in deciphering the often extremely complicated plots (and also helpful when trying to figure out what part of that page-long love triangle that you read in the program is actually happening on stage at the moment). Also, I suppose if you can't stand being hit over the head with the overdone tragedy of betrayal of a sweet and completely innocent young virgin, then perhaps you'll never actually be able to enjoy it.

But really, good ballet is SO GOOD!! And the Australian Ballet Company can fully hold its own.

I went to go see Madame Butterfly which has apparently been an opera since 1904, but I had never heard of it before. It was only recently (comparatively) adapted to ballet though, in 1995. Melbourne was the first city that this ballet was ever performed in, so it had a bit of a local pride attached to it. Given its recent origins though, it was much less rigid than a classical ballet, which I found very freeing and interesting. The story line was also much more contemporary and political than your traditional European fairytale, although still with familiar themes of a maiden betrayed and ultimately killing herself as the only route of escape.

Through a rather unfortunate mistake of the web browsers, I had the opportunity of going to see the ballet twice, two nights in a row. But really, I didn't mind so much, especially since the second night had a completely different cast, so it was basically an entirely different show.

The pas de deux at the end of the first act was quite possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen...at least the first night anyway. The second night was a little disappointing in that regard as all the dancers were new to the role and didn't necessarily connect to each other at the same level. The story is slightly complicated, but basically an American naval soldier is stationed in Japan in 1904 and decides to marry a Japanese girl while hes there to have a bit of fun before he goes back to the States to marry the girl he is already engaged to there. Long story short, the Japanese girl finds out about it and kills herself.

But this part at the close of the second act...oh my gosh!!! It's basically showing the wedding night and her shying away from him and finally, slowly, giving in (nothing very graphic, we still have the balletic innocence thing going on here). Even though the audience knows the guy is actually a terrible person, it is still a really beautiful piece. The technical feats of the dancers are incredible. There is this one pass where she leaps and then doesn't go about landing, so she is falling to the ground when he catches her under the arms and spins her around just skimming the surface of the stage. It makes your heart leap something fierce.

So yes, I am a bit of a ballet nerd, but it just makes me sooo happy! Literally, when I went to go see Giselle with a dear friend at the Mariinsky last summer, I couldn't stop smiling and bouncing up and down the whole time. That is, the whole time when I wasn't crying because of how beautiful and tragic Giselle is. I still can't actually talk about it. When people ask me how the ballet in Russia was, I just smile, start jumping up and down, and can't actually manage to get a single sentence out. That is how it was here too, except that when one goes to the ballet alone one must internalize all of the squealing, which I must say was extremely challenging.

So go ahead, judge me, but I really really really love ballet.