Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion - Romeo and Juliet

I suppose I was inspired by this season of So You Think You Can Dance, but when I saw Goldstar's advertisement of $30 orchestra tickets to see the American Ballet Theater perform Romeo and Juliet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, I jumped on it. Mr. Insom was out of town that day so I didn't even have to worry about preventing him from sleeping during the performance.

Photobucket

The Dorthy Chandler Pavilion, along with the Mark Taper Forum, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Ahmanson Theater, comprise the Los Angeles Music Center. The Music Center is home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles Opera, and Los Angeles Master Chorale and provides venues for countless traveling groups and performances.

There's always something good going on down there.


Photobucket

Photobucket



Photobucket

At intermission I took a bunch of pictures of the grounds.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket


I love Prokofiev's score and although I had seen a previous version of the ballet in Detroit, MI, I hadn't seen the Kenneth MacMillian version. And I hadn't seen the American Ballet Theater perform it. It was magical. I've never been a real fan of ballet, but I loved every second of this performance. Without a doubt there was breathtaking technical execution, but I wasn't expecting the dancers to be such great actors... I truly believed that they were young kids experiencing the exhilarating feelings of first love.

Just to prove my point: here's a high-quality youtube video and some stills of the balcony pas de deux - ah, so beautiful.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

And here's a video of Juliet's death scene. Her final pose on the bed gives me chills.





Cameras were verboten, but I snuck one blurry picture of the wonderful Gillian Murphy taking her last curtain call. Man, watching those youtube videos makes me remember how much I loved this. It was probably the best experience I've had in the past year.

Photobucket

4 comments:

weezermonkey said...

Ha ha re Mr. Insom being out of town. Mr. Mo would never go to this with me. :P

dapotato said...

i saw a ballet once in NYC. it was beautiful, but i slept through a lot of it. i don't even remember which ballet it was or which company i saw. :(

oh yeah, the hubs would never go to this with me.

Grace said...

The only way my husband would go to this with me is if I tell him that our daughter really wants to go.

Hmmm... now there's an idea, lol.

amber said...

For as many years as I've danced, I'm ashamed to admit that I've only been to the ballet once... and that was when my H got tix for me. :/

That sounds wonderful - I think I would have really enjoyed it. Great pics, too.