Swan Lake

Russian Ballet!

On Friday night I went to see Swan Lake at the Mariinsky Theatre with Dad and Ann. The only other ballet I've seen is the Nutcracker at various Christmases, so I was looking forward to this. Especially after watching Black Swan. Although, surprise surprise, the storyline in the real thing is kinda different. Mostly because there's TWO swans, one black and one white.

The theater is extremely unassuming from the outside, and equally beautiful on the inside. All red and gold and a huge chandelier.

This is the inside of the theater during one of the intermissions. I was actually a little surprised that it wasn't bigger. I'm not sure why but I expected there to be more seats, and more rows of seats instead of so many boxes.

But totally decorated. You couldn't look anywhere without there being some sort of gold trim; tassels on the curtains, gold-coloured patterns on every flat surface.

Ann and I in the theater. Sorry for the bad quality, this picture was taken from my phone.

More of the inside of the theater. On the left is the giant chandelier in the middle. Ann kept talking about how nice it was so I took a picture. Now that I look at it again, it really is quite nice. The right is the prime seating, also covered in red and gold. Best seats in the house!

I'm not great with song and band names, so I wasn't surprised to hear music I recognized but couldn't have told you was from Swan Lake. Did that make sense? I recognized the music but couldn't have placed it as Swan Lake. Of course, now I can. Theoretically...

There are of course no photos allowed during the performance, so I was only able to snap a few at the end when the cast was taking their bows.

There was actually a much bigger cast than this, but these are the only ones who came out to bow. The three main dancers are the Swan Queen in the middle, the Prince on the right, and the Magician on the left. Definitely three of the main characters but I was interested in seeing just how many people had taken part. Oh well....

Overall the entire show was amazing. I was enthralled from start to finish, and the entire thing seemed to be over in a flash.

Of course, it wasn't a completely magical evening for me. I wore one of my favourite sweaters, and it was stolen from under a seat at the end of the show. Turned around to put it on, and it wasn't there. I mean, I expected something like this at a bar or somewhere else public, but the ballet? Seriously!