Merry Christmas! (?)

Today I saw a performance of the Mariinsky's the Nutcracker. I have never before heard of any production of the Nutcracker taking place this early... nearly two weeks before Thanksgiving! In the past, I've always thought of the weekend after Thanksgiving as being the earliest appropriate time to have Nutcracker shows. It surprises me even more that this show was scheduled when it was because of the fact that Christmas is celebrated later in Russia than in many other places- in the beginning of January rather than the end of December- so we still have almost two months to go before Christmas!

Still, I wasn't about to turn down a chance to see the show simply because it's too far away from Christmas. Judging by how packed the theater was, there are a lot of people in St. Petersburg who share my attitude. I couldn't see a single empty seat in the whole theater. I was just one of many people standing through the show, and the majority were most definitely not students, so I assume that the show was completely sold out.

It may end up being a very good thing that I saw an early production of the Nutcracker, because if there is already this much enthusiasm for the show almost two months before Christmas, I can't even to begin to imagine what it must be like at the shows in the days just before the holiday. My standing spot was in my favorite part of the theater, right near the center of the first balcony. Being in the middle of the theater and slightly elevated above the stage makes the view from there excellent. They hand out the standing-room places on a first-come, first-served basis, so if there had been more people at the show, it's much less likely that I would have gotten to watch from such an excellent place.

A huge percentage of this entusiastic audience appeared to be in the five- to nine-year-old range, which added a whole other magical dimension to the production. It's an excellent thing to see a beautiful performance of a ballet, but seeing a young child's reaction to it is even better.