The day before the performance, though, my perfect situation became very imperfect rather quickly when I learned that I would have rehearsal until 8:00 p.m. on the day of Lopatkina's Swan Lake, which was scheduled to begin at 7:00. Determined to see at least some of the ballet, I decided that I would go as quickly as possible from the school to the theater after the end of my rehearsal and hopefully arrive in time for the third and fourth acts of the ballet.
On the day of the performance, a friend, having heard of my plans to go to only to the second half of the ballet, asked if she could take my ticket and use it to watch the first half so that she would also get a chance to see Lopatkina perform. We planned to switch places at intermission. I was concerned the theater employees wouldn't let us switch, or wouldn't let me even enter the theater when I arrived, but all I could do was wait and see.
The evening of the performance found me in a rehearsal that ended almost twenty minutes late, then running and trying to catch a bus that I missed because the driver wouldn't open the doors again to let me on. Soon enough, though, another bus arrived. It was a different line and took me on a more direct route to the theater, dropping me off directly in front of the theater instead of around the corner. When I arrived at the Mariinsky, the third act had already begun, which I knew thanks to a text message from the friend with whom I had planned to switch places. Thinking that perhaps I would be allowed into the theater to watch the performance if I bought a ticket, I headed into the lobby.
I was a sorry sight, having come straight from a long day of classes and rehearsals. I was dressed in my warm-up clothing (gray sweatpants and an oversized blue hoodie sweatshirt), a tan coat, and brown boots. I had a bag full of various dance things on one shoulder; on the other shoulder was a bag of street clothing that I hadn't had time to change into before leaving to catch the bus. I was also carrying a plastic shopping bag with the saddest practice tutu the earth has ever seen rolled up inside it. (The fact that the poor thing can be carried arround in a shopping bag without doing the it any further harm says a lot about the tutu's current sorry state).
I walked into the theater through the front doors and crossed the nearly deserted lobby. The window to the administrator's office, where I usually exchange my paper slip from the academy for my student ticket, was closed, as was the box office. I headed towards the hallway running around the perimeter of the audience's area of the performance hall, where I saw two ushers conversing.
I had just arrived an hour and forty-five minutes late for the performance, with no ticket, hair in a bun and arms full of dance clothes and shoes. Maybe it was my terrible Russian, with which I was trying to express my desire to watch the rest of the ballet, maybe it was the fact that I was quite clearly a dancer, or maybe it was just because I looked sad and confused, but one of the ushers took pity on me. She led me to the coat check and let me store my many bags there without having to pay, then led me to the 18th box of the parterre, where she allowed me to stand and watch the rest of the performance.
I entered the theater in the middle of the dance immediately before Uliana Lopatkina's first enterance as Odile, the black swan. Swan Lake is by far my favorite ballet, but the parts that I love the most come at the very end of the ballet- the pas de deux of Odile and Siegfried in the third act and the scene with Odette and the other swans in the fourth act- and I had arrived just in time to see them.
Lopatkina's performance was like none I've seen before. Her technique is incredible and her fouetté turns were perfect, but what really swept me away was her emotional presence. From an Odile so evil it seemed she'd burn your skin if you got close enough, Lopatkina transformed into a pure, heart-wrenching Odette. She had such a powerful and magnetic emotional presence, not only when she danced but when she was only walking, too, that it was impossible to look away. Three times when she entered the stage as Odile, it brought tears to my eyes.
This is an evening that I'll never forget, both because of the incredible performance I got to see and because of the way everything worked out in the end, despite the many things that seemed to go wrong along the way. I would have loved to see the whole performance, but I appreciated the parts that I did get to see even more because I was so glad that I was able to see them at all!
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