Friday, November 22, 2002
In Search of Beauty at the Bolshoi Ballet
Give me a good, crisp Fall day and a yard full of leaves, and, usually, I can rake away the November blahs. But after the recent election, I felt in need of a more powerful pick-me-up. The True and the Good turned out to be a bust in the recent election, so I prescribed myself a trip to Chicago in search of Beauty.
My beloved splurged on tickets to see the Bolshoi ballet. I confess that I’m not a balletomane. I think I like the idea of liking ballet more than I like ballet itself. In part, this is due to childhood memories set in dusty halls where I tried to follow the instructor’s commands to imagine myself as a falling leaf twirling in the wind. Gazing at my dumpy, leotard-clad figure, reflected in parallel, full-length mirrors to infinity, I couldn’t imagine anyone else taking me for gusting foliage. The driven, chain-smoking ballet teacher in the movie “Billy Eliot” reminded me of those testy ladies in dusty halls. So I have a residual ambivalence about demi pliés and fifth position. To be fair to my mother’s modest ambitions, though, I do have good posture, which, as she notes, is so important for tall women.
Adler and Sullivan’s Auditorium Theatre in Chicago is a gem. Beyond the decorated entry-way, theatre goers mingle democratically in the lobby, some in denim, some in diamonds. In the auditorium itself, bands of gilding arch over your head and the interior twinkles gently with old-fashioned light bulbs. You feel you’re inside a bejewelled Faberge egg. We were seated very close to the stage, and I was fascinated to observe my neighbours, for some of whom this clearly was not a special treat. Then the orchestra began and we were transported to somewhere in medieval middle Europe, where a glittering court awaits their prince, who is in search of an ideal love.
The plot of Swan Lake is just an everyday story of love and betrayal. Boy meets girl, boy pledges eternal fidelity, girl turns into large waterfowl, boy flirts at a party with girl’s evil twin, original girl - despite her aquatic affinities - tragically drowns. With all due respect to the tale’s Germanic folk origins - the plot really is quite silly. But, with Tchaikovsky’s swooshy music, and the amazing athleticism of the Bolshoi dancers, credibility is beside the point. Disbelief is suspended like the prince at the zenith of his leap.
The principal ballerina curves her arms in the gesture of a preening swan and I can see a cloud of enchanted swan maidens settle on the lake. Rothbart, the evil magician, conjures malice from thin air as he lunges and spins. Yet, sitting so close to the stage for the first time, I can see the muscularity of the dancers and their heaving chests. I can hear the muffled thunk of the women’s toe shoes as they dance. Somehow, it’s much more compelling to glimpse the effort that sustains the perfect surface of the ballet. In the past, from the cheap seats in the Gods, at such a distance, I’d never been able to connect the tiny figures I saw on stage with real people. They seemed mechanical, moving in precise patterns like a plastic ballerina on a musical box. But, sitting this close, the experience is changed. As Odette, the swan-princess, balances on points with her legs held at 6 o’clock, I remember standing at the barre in a dusty dance studio and realising that there were all kinds of things my body simply could not do.
As we emerge from the theatre, we are both tired. It’s late and it’s been hard work concentrating for so long. Outside, the streets of Chicago are powdered with a light snow. A few flakes catch the street light as they fall.
Tomorrow we will return to South Bend. Though the music’s spell has been broken, images of the ballet will linger. Who knows, maybe next weekend, the leaves will dance for me as I rake in the yard.