Today I went to the ballet. A dear friend of ours had three tickets for the best seats in the house but couldn’t go, so we went instead and took our daughter. It was wonderful. Not exactly what I’d consider my cup of tea (I don’t much care to watch those feet on tippytoe, and quite frankly the chaps’ big lunch-packs and pert b*ms can make me jealous…), but I’m so glad I went. It was in The Hall For Cornwall in Truro (our capital city, complete with cathedral I’ll have you know!) and it was the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre, all the way from Russia, with their production of The Sleeping Beauty. I love Tchaikovsky and I know the music well enough to whistle it all the way through (I restrained myself!), but I’d never seen it danced to until today. This was no provincial bunch of enthusiasts “doing their best” - this was a world-class company with their own world-class orchestra, and here in deepest Cornwall! 
Well, I can tell you that I was moved literally to tears, especially in Act ll. My eyes have been well and truly opened. What energy, what effort and what artistic endeavour. How tough it must be for a touring group of artists to be away from home for months at a time, not to make a packet (which I’m certain that none of them were doing) but just to give people like me edification through joy. Ah, 'tis a better man that I am today! 
Join the club, mate. My sister likes opera, but it’s never really seized me. But I like dance in all the forms I’ve ever encountered, with the exception of disco.
Be prepared for assumptions of homosexuality on the admission of enjoying ballet. Why is this? There are women on the stage too. Are heterosexual men not allowed to enjoy the sight of graceful women showing athletic and gymnastic prowess to music? Do they have to have balconnet, which ballerinas do not have, as a rule?
Never mind. The world is a strange place, and we can’t pander to witless assumptions. Anyway, join the club.
I’ve heard opera described as the silliest thing you can do with your clothes on, and I do have an issue with not being able to hear the words (a result of squally singing rather than foreign language - I always think that opera should be sung in the language the composer wrote it in!). But I saw a lovely production of Carmen at The Hall For Cornwall a few years ago, and we had Cornwall’s own opera company, Duchy Opera, putting on The Marriage of Figaro right here in li’l ol’ Bude! Figaro, like a lot of operas, has a very silly plot, but Mozart’s music utterly transcends the farce of it all. Actually, I was talking to Nicky about this side of things on the way home from Truro. I was wondering whether the actual plot of The Sleeping Beauty (very insubstantial to say the least!) was an unworthy vehicle for Tchaikovsky’s wonderful score. Is the music too good for the dancing! Well, the production we saw, on reflection, seemed to answer the question fully in the negative. Why think in terms of separating the music from the dance? Music, after all, is a distillation of either song or dance anyway!
Just don’t get me on to Wagner though - or, at least, if you do, put it in the controversial forum! 
As someone much wiser than me once said,“Britain is a fag country.”
djm
I really don’t want to get overly controversial when we’re in the pub, but I would offer you this. Do you really go to the ballet/opera/theatre/wherever, watch the participants thereof with admiration, yet at the same time contemplate whether they’re boys shagging boys, boys shagging girls, girls shagging boys or girls shagging girls? If so, I venture to suggest that you’re wasting your ticket money in a vain attempt to be more “sophisticated” than the rest of the plebs who are actually there to drink fully of the cup of art, taking what they can in their various ways to gain in edification and increase that inner knowledge of what it is to be truly human. In other words, sex-cynics, get a bloody life! 
In a similar vein, country music is the closest popular culture comes to Opera:
A guy in an outfit standing on stage and emoting about amore.
The opera house here has a overhead translation that goes with the music, and is no different than subtitles in a movie. After hearing Marriage of Figaro sung after translation, would say that it does not make the singing much more understandable. Of the Operas I have been to Madam Butterfly, Pagliacci, and the Flying Dutchman were all worth the time. We now avoid Verdi operas.
Some day I am hoping that we can see a traditional ballet, but for some reason, we keep hitting experimental groups. Other than the Nutcracker, are there any ballets that are common?
I really can’t claim to be an opera fanatic, but I think I’d rather the work was sung in the language it was intended to be sung in and read the surtitles. As was hinted at, even if your language is the one of the opera you’re listening to it still pays to have the words anyway! 
Mostly I was agreeing with your assessment of “result of squally singing rather than foreign language”. I really couldn’t imagine
“Ridi, Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto! Ridi del duol, che t’avvelena il cor!”
being sung as
“Laugh, Pagliaccio, at your broken love! Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart!”
Although, last night we watched Throne of Blood, a Japanese version of Macbeth, so who knows…
I enjoy the “Dirty Stories in Italian” (and Carmen) but agree with Steve about Wagner.
“Britain is a Fag Country”. Yep. Stogies never really caught on, here.
I like both ballet and opera. I like all forms forms of dance except flamenco and the silly dancy bits in women’s gymnastics (knock it off girl, it’s supposed to be a sport).
My favorite opera is mozart’s Don Giovanni. Reason? It’s the only one where those bl**dy tenors don’t get all the best tunes. My favourite aria, by a long way, is O Mio Babbino Caro.
I didn’t think I liked flamenco either but I went to see a top-notch flamenco company from Spain a few years ago and I was bowled over. It was a long way removed from my previous prejudiced view of it’s being one woman in a flowing, blood-red dress whirling around provocatively to some maniac with a guitar in a dimly-lit, smoke-filled back-street tapas bar. Full of fire and passion it was and the dancing and music-making was wonderful.
I’m probably not the only bloke here who doesn’t mind the dancy bits in women’s gymnastics. I won’t attempt to explain why though as I’m assuming you can probably guess. 
Gosh, Steve, can you remember back that far? 
djm
amazing the odd bits of the memory that survive middle age, innit?
Oi, whaddya mean “survive middle age?” I’m not there yet you know! I’m only 56!! 
:laughing: down the river the river of denial :laughing:
The river of de Nile? Are you saying that I’m in Seine??
that would be next year… 
60 is the new 40. Is that right, Steve, ya old fart?
djm
Nah. 56 is the new 32. Ask any 32-year-old girl in Bude. I’ve tried to ask them but they don’t stop walking.