At the Ballet

Last night I took YaYa, The Banana and Mr. TOF to a performance of the Minnesota Ballet.   The Banana heard that they were doing Firebird this spring when she went to The Nutcracker at Christmas with a friend, and she reminded me many, many times to get tickets.  YaYa really appreciates ballet as well, and two weeks ago played Stravinsky’s orchestra music for Firebird with the Youth Symphony, so she was excited to come.  Dr. Peds and Mr. SP are not ballet-goers, but when we asked Mr. TOF, he was all about coming and really liked it.  (Although afterward  he did say  that he liked going to a play better than the ballet.  He had just been to the theater for a school field trip).

The dancing was beautiful, and so was the amazing set design.  My favorite part was the evil monsters.  I loved the evil monsters.  I loved their costumes.  I loved their crazy sinister movements.  If I were dancing I would totally want to be one of the monsters.  It would be way more fun than being a princess.

The first half of the performance was three short works that had nothing to do with the Firebird.  One work was based on Debussy’s Clair de Lune, played live by an amazing local pianist.  Another work was a set of dances based on parts of J.S. Bach’s unaccompanied suites for cello, played by a member of our symphony.  The choreography was very interesting, and there was one part in particular that was absolutely gorgeous.  I think it was during that part that Mr. TOF leaned over to me and said, “Mom!  That cello is sounding very good.  I bet you wished you could play like that because it isn’t even sounding a bit out of tune!”