My friend Catherine received two tickets for the Houston
Ballet’s “Swan Lake”. Did I want to go? Yes! Beyond a Doubt! Absolutely!
You Betcha! Yep, Yep, Yep! Would I mind driving? No
Problem! Okay Dokay! I will be Happy to! Yep, Yep, Yep!
So, I picked her up a little after noon yesterday and we,
with Siri navigating, headed for the wilds of Big H. You know, people in the city are totally
crazy drivers. You forget what driving
in the city is like – at least I do. It’s
Demented (crazy;
insane; mad). Plus, the “powers-that-be”
have changed up all the freeways since I lived there, so getting to Jones Hall
was interesting. Equally interesting was
figuring out the where’s of the
parking. Wasn’t too bad – only took
three trips around the various blocks.
Once parked, it was a bit of a hike to get to the ‘up’
stairs to street level. I did write down
the location of the car or gods know, I’d probably still be looking for it!
We went in, found our seats and ……. lo and behold, people
were sitting in them. After a moment or
two of discussion Catherine discovered we were there on the wrong day – tickets
were for Sunday. Well poop!
Back to the ticket booth.
Explanations. No problem. New tickets.
Good seats! Great.
Now, in case you don’t know ….
"Swan Lake", written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
in 1875, is a love story that mixes magic, tragedy, and romance into four acts.
It features Prince Siegfried and a lovely swan princess named Odette. Under the
spell of a sorcerer, Odette spends her days as a swan swimming on a lake of
tears and her nights in her beautiful human form. The couple quickly falls in love. But, things
are not easy and the sorcerer, Von Rothbart, has more tricks to play. He brings
Odile, his daughter, into the picture. Confusion, betrayal, forgiveness, and a tragic
ending are capped with Siegfried and Odette jumping into the lake and drowning. Von Rothbart’s spell is broken and the
remaining swans turn back into humans. They quickly drive the sorcerer and
Odile into the water where they too drown.
OK, so all I can tell you is that everything was beautiful –
the music, the costumes, the stage sets.
The dancers were amazing.
Honestly, those young people have muscles in places where I don’t even
have places, much less muscles. Von
Rothbart does this beautiful, amazing (yes, I know, using this word a lot but ...), perfect swan dive into the void from a
platform that appears to be some 6 feet up.
Odette does many perfect pirouettes. The Prince did stunning leaps and carried
Odette/Odile around like she weighed only ounces. The whole thing was very good.
Then, of course, came the big challenge. We had to (1) get out of Jones
Hall (us plus 3 or 4 hundred thousand other people – well that might be a slight exaggeration); (2) find the car park;
(3) go down into the bowels of said car park (us plus those same 3 or 4 hundred
thousand other people); and (4) actually find the car. That accomplished, we had to drive back into
the light and air. That took, oh maybe,
an hour – perhaps 2 hours of sitting and waiting for someone to move somewhere
(I don’t much like sitting under ground with a building on top of me). Then, we had to figure out where we were in
the light and air (turn on Siri again) and head for points south and west.
Once we reached Rosenberg, we
stopped for dinner, which was very good.
Again, excellent company made it even better. And then, I headed for home.
Take care.
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