April 19, 2005 – At the Ballet

April 19, 2005 – At the Ballet

After spending a restful night last Friday in a room on the 22nd floor of the Hilton Hotel on O’Farrell Street in San Francisco, we woke just before 9:00 AM to a beautiful Saturday morning in the city. After lounging about for an hour we decided to have breakfast in our room in front of a expansive window with a morning view of San Francisco Bay off to our right and Nob Hill to our left. Directly in front, we could make out the rising cables of the Oakland Bay Bridge. If you were looking for a place to enjoy a meal, you would be hard pressed to beat this room. It took about a half hour for breakfast to arrive and during that time I phoned the San Francisco Ballet Box Office to purchase tickets for the matinee later in the afternoon. There were two tickets in the Orchestra, Row G, would these be acceptable? They would and an American Express credit card number made them ours for pick up at the Ballet Box Office Will Call window.

When Breakfast arrived, we sated ourselves by the window, the sun beaming into the room, the Bay sparkling in the distance, the city below now wide awake going about the business of being a city. On the bay, the handful of small boats and the one large unmoving tanker with a red bottom decorated the open expanse of water. We lingered absorbed in the view. By the time we finished, it was getting past 11:00. We began gathering up our belongings in preparation for check out. I called the garage and had them bring up the car. We then collected our bags and headed for the lobby to check out. We once again joined a short queue waiting to pay their bills. By the time we had settled our account and walked to the garage, the car was waiting. I tipped the valet and we loaded up and pulled out into traffic on Ellis Street—one way heading northeast toward Van Ness. At Hyde Street I turned left and drove two blocks to Turk where I turned right once again. Three blocks more and we crossed Van Ness and I turned into the Opera Plaza Garage where we left the car before heading to the War Memorial Opera House three blocks south on Van Ness at Grove Street

It was noon when we arrived at the San Francisco Ballet Box Office,
there greeted by a long queue waiting to buy and collect pre paid tickets. While we stood in line, there was a sudden flurry of activity as people in the line began to gesture and speak in excited tones to one another. We were later to find out that the conductor for this afternoon’s performance, Andrew Mogrelia, had walked to the head of the ticket line and collected something held for him in the box office. After we claimed out tickets we went inside the theater lobby and viewed an exhibition of Evelyn Cisneros’s ballet costume for Sleeping Beauty as well as pictures of Helgi Tomasson, the ballet’s artistic director and choreographer—a celebration of his 20 years with the company. Evelyn Cisneros is to the San Francisco Ballet what Suzanne Farrell was to the Balanchine’s New York City Ballet—one fine performer.

For the matinee we would be treated to Program Six, which consisted of three pieces. Symphonic Variations—music by Cesar Franck, choreography by Sir Frederick Ashton—featured six dancers. The second piece Dybbuk—music by Leonard Bernstein, choreography by Jerome Kern, featured the larger company but two dancers—Vanessa Zahorian and Nicolas Blanc—in the lead roles of Leah and Chanon, respectively. The third piece Lambarena—choreographed by Val Caniparoli to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach combined with traditional African music—likewise featured the larger company. The first and third were the easier of the three to grasp and appreciate. The music of the first and third pieces was uplifting and full of life. The music of second piece was dark and ominous and complemented the dramatic tale of star-crossed lovers reunited in death. The first two pieces were accompanied by the ballet orchestra. The third piece was danced to a recording—I suspect the expense of recreating the musical fusion live would have been prohibitive.

What I admire about ballet is the dedication to an art form that verges on religious devotion: each day walking into a studio walled in mirrors approaching a bar and methodically performing a repetitive unvarying ritual of movement. The true devotee, who is blessed with talent, becomes the reining star of their art. What I admire is the singleness of purpose that drives the true believer toward a perceived ideal of perfection. You see the result in their performance, which to the viewer seems effortless and at no point contrived as if each movement was a completely natural gesture. The six dancers of Symphonic Variations had that quality. With few dancers on stage the viewer could follow the movements to the three pairs and appreciate that perfected movement.

Of the three pieces, the third, Lambarena, left the most lasting impression with me. Perhaps it was the mixture of African rhythms and movements with the traditional European ballet form that made the piece stand out. Where else could you see ballet dancers one moment on point and the next shaking their hips. It was a visual treat.

The audience for the matinee was made up of true fans of the ballet. You could tell it in their enthusiasm for the dancers after each work completed. Curiously, it was a crowd largely of our age group with a spattering of families with children. In a world of reality TV and movies made for a young audience, one of the few entertainments for the aging generation is the ballet, opera, and symphony, with the ballet being the most visually pleasing of the three.

We left the city just before 4:00 PM and headed south to home. We had celebrated in grand style the passing of another year together.