The Sleeping Beauty (ballet)

I went to The Sleeping Beauty at the Royal Opera House, a ballet set to Tchaikovsky's score. Our flat building because it's student housing sometimes has amazing deals on 'culture' events, and Matt and I have learned to pounce when the opportunity presents itself. My seat for the ballet was a bit in the nose-bleed section, but it had a clear view of everything.

Matt and I have only ever been to one other ballet (except for elementary school field trips I guess) and that was Gisele in Paris for 8 euro when we were there three years ago. And I had no idea what the story was, so I walked out of there totally confused. This time I knew what the story was going to be, but knowing the story makes you think, "How are they going to interpret this story into a dance, especially one that seems to be primarily waving your arms about?" Here's the answer: make the story so clear and simple you'd be hard pressed not to understand and intersperse the rather thin plot with long passages of dancing which have no plot details but are simply beautifully transporting. And it was beautiful. I make fun of waving the arms about, but waving your arms about beautifully and dancing a full ballet is HARD and takes a lot of work. Make no mistake, these people are athletes. I could see everyone's clearly defined calf muscles from the nosebleed seats. Anyway, can you do this? :



The London Times gave the ballet 4 out of 5 stars, so it must be pretty good even if I'm no judge and have nothing to say but that it was beautiful. There is sometimes so much detail going on that I find it better to just let my eyes go out of focus a bit and enjoy the collective effect.