Swan Lake Ballet

Caught it again today. Sat right at the front, and it was yet another totally ethereal feeling. It was like every small detail on stage was displayed clearly in front of me. And yes, together with the beauty, I could see how much effort is needed by dancers to form this wonderful ballet. The legendary choreography by Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa probably stretched limits of the human body to the maximum to accomodate such quality ballet music by Tchaikovsky.

And yes, tonight's ballerina was Roberta Marquez again. She danced two performances of Swan Lake in two consecutive nights? Oh well, she ought to get a long break from the troupe for performing such a unbelievable feat. But since I was sitting in the front today, she did seem a little tired today, though that didn't stop her from giving the audience a wonderful performance. She earns my utmost respect for that. And I have seriously no idea what happened to Alina Cojocaru, the ballerina I expected to see. Guess she probably needed a break from ballet for this period and left the entire whole performance last night to Marquez...

And yes, I forgot to mention in the last entry that the corps de ballet of the Royal Ballet troupe was absolutely wonderful. The coordination, grace and poise of the dancers were near perfect. Some minor hiccups today compared to last night's performance like some occasional slips here and there (or was it because I was sitting too far away last night to notice hiccups in the performance), but on the whole, it was still a world-class performance.

The orchestra was slightly better today. Maybe I was a little too harsh due to my high expectations yesterday, but they do deserve some applause for their coordination with the dancers...

So now, three nights of first class performances at the Esplanade to conclude this week. How perfect...