If you ever have the opportunity to see a performance by Les Ballet de Monte-Carlo, don't pass it up!! Even if you think you may not like ballet.
I took Sweetie McPie to see Les Ballet de Monte-Carlo's performance of Le Songe (A Midsummer Night's Dream) on Saturday, and it was quite incredible. I am a sucker for ballet anyway, but this one rivalled my all-time favourite performance - back in 2000 - which was Romeo and Juliette performed by, you guessed it, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo.
Lots of companies do the "modern twist" thing, but BMC does it best, in my (admittedly limited) experience. It's closer to modern dance, but with enough ballet sensibility to keep it civilized. The music used in the BMC's Le Songe was was amazing - they used Mendelssohn's score for the scenes with the Athenians (Hermia, Lysander and the like); a very ethereal, modernist classical piece for the scenes with the fairies (whose costumes and choreography were simply breathtaking); and a crazy super-modern score which included a choir for the scenes with the "mechanics". There was also some talking, and fantastic acting that really made the story clear. Because the plot involves so much mixing-up of who loves who, the key lovers were labelled so the audience could keep it straight. It was just really amazing.
We were lucky not to miss this - we picked up the tickets just the night before the performance, and we still managed to get great seats. I think it was NAC karmic repayment for the lacklustre Royal Winnipeg performance of Carmen that we saw last month. (In that one, the musical score lacked any degree of drama, and therefore so did the movement... and what else is Carmen supposed to be if not dramatic?! She came off as a sort of boring hussy.)
Of course, in attending the ballet we had to briefly interrupt our big weekend of working on the kitchen. Thanks to many hours of work on Sunday (most on the part of my genius husband) we are getting there. I will post an update (with pictures) soon.
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