Le Sacre Du Printemps
As a completely mad Christmas present for ninshubur and myself I managed to buy two tickets for Pina Bausch version of Le Sacre Du Printemps (Rites of Spring) at Paris Opera House on 23rd of December! It seemed like a good idea at the time, until the snow came. We turned up at St. P with a huge flask of coffee, ready to join the long queue for the Eurostar to Paris, only to find the place fairly empty! With a huge thank you to the terminal manager called Barbara we not only managed to get the 8am train but we also got upgraded to 1st class!
Arrived in a snowy Paris, found our hotel which had a kettle. I think packing the thermos flask of coffee had the same effect as lighting a fag whilst waiting for a bus!
Dumped our bags and went shopping. A lovely person treated me to a pair of Vivienne Westwood pumps as an extra Crimbo pressie! Than off to the ballet.
The programme consisted of three short ballets, Apollo by Balanchine, O Composite by Trisha Brown and Rites of Spring by Pina Bausch. A bit of a wobbly performance of Apollo the dancers did not seem to be up for it. O Composite featured music by Laurie Anderson, one of her more ambient pieces. Loved the slow graceful moves, the movie of bursts of light behind the dancers really worked well.
Between O and Rites we did a quick dash to THAT STAIRCASE to take some photos, the theatre looked even more lovely than usual, all decked out for Christmas.
A real place to pose
Wonderful side galleries
Mirror, Mirror
The view as you walk into your box.
A very happy me!
Love the ceiling - even if it is fairly modern!
Sorry but I could not resist a snap of the safety curtain.
We made our way back to our seats in good time for the start of Rites of Spring... to be greeted by the stage hands sweeping earth over the stage.
The usual eccentric Pina stage set. Must admit this is one of my favourite versions of Rites, PB managed to catch all the tension and terror of the piece. Very male centric. Love the part where the female dancers charge at the kneeling male dancers and jump on their shoulders to be lifted in the air.
The earth after the dancers have finished.
Two happy bunnies left the theatre - via the shop, well it is nearly crimbo, we even found a fairly in expensive place to eat on the way back to the hotel.