The hall of the Royal Opera House is steep and circular. Hundreds of seats rise in five levels and seem to wrap up against the ceiling. Looking up, the effect is ominous, claustrophobic. Glance down at the first level, and the seats are as tightly packed as they come. You can tell the red velvet chairs were designed for smaller bodies: An oversized sausage of a woman tries not to move. She looks tense — unprepared for the sardine-like seating. After all, opera houses were meant for the well-fed to watch the performance of the starving artists.
We paid significantly less to have seats without armrests. They are in the corner on the balcony level. We think the view will be obscured, but we soon find out that the great thing about crummy seats is that they aren't attached to the floor. We scoot our chairs up to the balcony and lean over slightly. Perfect view. The musicians in the pit are tuning. Below the evening hum of the audience, you can pick out a faint, familiar line from the Prokofiev's score. There are eight-or-so cellists in the orchestra. Unexpectedly, I long for my own.
Before the lights are dimmed, a small girl — maybe 11 or 12 — wiggles in her seat and sits cross-legged while she talks at her dad. She wears a grey velvet dress and black patent-leather mary jane shoes. Instantly, I am transported to the audience of Annie Get Your Gun. I am in my sapphire-blue dress and black patent-leather shoes. You're there next to me, and I am still luxuriating in the cheesecake we ate earlier. I am frustrated with myself for not taking you up on your offer to get my hair done at the St. Regis salon. That was a tough lesson in learning when to not be reasonable on vacations. I try to remember how the Broadway show began. It's at the edge of my memory when the curtain rises and the orchestra starts. The music is an instant trigger back to rehearsals in Gladstone. Saturdays when I didn't know if I'd ever stop sweating. Expensive turquoise costumes that I hung in the bathroom to steam while the shower was on. The steps I thought I'd never think about again are back. My dormant muscles are awakened. They know the dances I learned and watched. They know that music by heart.
Thinking about this reminds me of something I recently read. Ballet companies have no way of recording dances in a form that everyone can understand. Some can hire notators who write in a specific dance language, which few people can read. Most companies rely on the oral tradition of passing a ballet down from director to dancer. The ballet Giselle has been passed down this way since 1841. The problem is that steps and movements and meaning are lost in every translation and re-translation of the piece. The meaning and steps are only as accurate as the mediator's — the director's — memory allows. So some companies seek out dancers within the troupe with impeccable memories. These ballerinas are charged with the task of learning hundreds of dances and teaching them to younger generations. Because dancers train in a way that prioritizes quick memorization, their bodies also work as stores for the dances they learn. After not having danced a certain part for years, most ballerinas can dance the part when they music plays. For them, music and movement are intrinsically tied.
There aren't any real surprises in this version of the ballet. Cinderella is a classic that the ballet critics dread reviewing. It's a cash cow for companies, and because of this, vulnerable dance organizations don't want to risk reinterpreting something that isn't broken. The choreography, costumes, scenes and story rarely change.
But the step-sisters in the ballet are by far the funniest characters. They are two male dancers — danseurs — in drag, and they're hams. They don't wear pointe shoes, but instead wear gold, heeled shoes that they clomp and stomp. They aren't as mean as I expected them to be. Cinderella is just as lovely, though. And the fairies appear, the pumpkin that turns into a carriage — it's all live magic. You wonder why you ever needed words to tell this story. The dancers take you with them. It's a fairy tale we all know, but Tom and I liked revisiting it this way.
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