Saturday, December 11, 2004

La Belle au Bois

Well, my son's friend's mother has invited us to a few shows at the Opera over the next few months. Only one is a full fledged Ballet at the Opera de Paris, La Belle au Bois Dormant/Sleeping Beauty. It's a three hour and thirty minute show with two intermissions.
Being the deliquent mother that I sometimes am.... I forgot to tell my son the story of Sleeping Beauty before we got to the show. That could have been very helpful to his short attention span. However, I couldn't remember what the story was about so I was explaining the story as the show progressed. He couldn't understand how I was figuring it out since no one spoke. "Why isn't anyone talking??" he asked. Yeah, next time I'll read him the story AND explain how a ballet works. I tell you I'm learning this mother stuff one day at a time.
Today was a special show for underprivileged children so the place was filled with kids. My friend brought nine kids herself. I sat next to a little girl who came with her mother. Before the show started, the mother was fussing with the girl, around 10 years old, and she said to her mom "c'est pas ma premiere fois a l'opera maman!/ it's not my first time at the opera mom!" Needless to say, she wasn't one of the underprivileged children.
Because today was a charity show, there were some famous French people there. Girls were running around with pen and paper for autographs. It was all lost on me.... the French minister of culture, some choreography, the president of some company... then again people say they've seen Gerard Depardieu in my neighborhood and even though I've seen many of his movies, I know I would never recognize him if I bumped into him on the street.
The show was wonderful. The dancing magical. The costumes just magnificent. The set was gorgeous. In part three, after the second intermission, when the curtain was raised the audience just gasped at the beauty of the outfits and stage. If you like ballet, this is a must.
After 210 minutes the ballet ended and my son jumped up, clapped as hard as he could and screamed "bravo" followed by "woo-woo." People turned to look at him, impressed by how much he liked the performance. Too bad he was cheering that the show was finally over and he could talk again. And he speaks french, so of course he wasn't yelling "encore (again)!" By the way, my son and I were the only ones "woo-woo"ing. Sometimes we just let loose with our American selves.

-- said Auntie M in Paris
10:12 PM

1 comments

BACK TO MAIN PAGE