Hello Again!
Now if there's one thing I LOVE, it's a good musical/ballet and I've had the opportunity to watch one of each on the past week. Lucky girl right?
Last Sunday evening my godmother and I went to go watch Swan Lake performed by the St. Petersburg Ballet Company at Monte casino.
Having played Swan Lake on various occasions in the orchestra has made it my absolute favourite ballet because of the beautiful music which brings the absolute magic to this timeless ballet. The live orchestra was superb and made me proud to be a South African musician.
The ballet was already in its second week when we went to see it, which means the dancers were hopefully acclimatized and not suffering from jet lag. However, it wasn't the best performance of the ballet that I've seen. The prima-ballerina - Irina Kolesnikova interpreted both parts extremely well, but faltered a few times...these falters visible even to an untrained eye.
Nonetheless it was a lovely and enjoyable evening and the show has been extended for 6 additional shows before moving on to Australia in August.
The second show which I went to see was on Thursday which was also a day celebrated in South Africa as Madiba Day (Nelson Mandels's Birthday). The reason why this is significant is because the show we went to go watch was playing at the Nelson Mandela theatre.
The show's name is Starlight Express which is a fairly known work by composing great Andrew Lloyd Webber. I have not watched a rendition of this musical before and I was excited to see it for the first time. The stage was amazing, the costumes colourful and exciting, but the show simply failed to impress me. Not because the actors/singers weren't talented, but because it was just lacking the pzazz that I've come to expect from a Lloyd-Webber creation. If you have younger children, I absolutely recommend you taking them to see it, but this is not a show which I found overly entertaining.
The people with whom we went with are good friends with one of the main members of the cast, Andrew Webster. We watched the show and were then introduced to him.
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| Vivienne with Andrew Webster [Excuse the BAD photo!] |
It's fascinating to watch all the people who are in the theater industry conversing with each other. They're over the top and very eccentric at best. The evening was enjoyable.
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| Viv and I having dinner before the show |
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| the two main cast members thoroughly enjoying themselves! |
That's all for now! Now go see a show!
:)
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