Almost perfect

The Imperial Russian Ballet Company were in town to perform Swan Lake. Last night df and I swanned along to watch, listen and enjoy .. and enjoy we did. You can always trust the Russians to put up a good show, especially when it is ballet! The costumes were beautiful, the staging romantic, the dancers very good ... even brilliant sometimes. The only thing that marred the whole was the lack of live music .. the recording of Tchaikovsky’s great music somehow made it just not quite perfect ... but I'm not complaining.

The version of the story that they danced was the one that ends happily ... evil is defeated and Siegfried and Odette are transported to a permanent state of sublime heavenly bliss according to the program. Nice!

The evil sorcerer, Von Rothbart was a rather strange combination of a biker cum gang leader with a costume that reminded me of leather jackets and chains and headgear that looked like a baseball cap worn the wrong way round. It could have been funny but because of the power of the performance ... somehow it wasn't.