A night at the ballet.

I have never been one for high culture and it is a very, very long time since I have been to a ballet. So when my Latvian friend Valdis suggested we go to the ballet, I was distinctly disinterested. I had never heard of this ballet Bajadere or the composer and besides it was 6pm and the ballet started at 7pm. On the other hand the tickets were just 7 Euro if you booked on line so what the hell, lets go. Frantically we booked the tickets, had the hotel print them out and then raced like mad men to the opera house with no time to change into any clothes resembling 'ballet wear'.

Built in 1863 the Opera House is home to the Latvian Ballet Company, the Opera Company and the National Orchestra and all three have good reputations (Richard Wagner was musical director at one point). The three organisations run a series of concerts simultaneously so that you can go to something different every night and being relatively cheap, the series attracts high culture fans from all over Europe, Germany in particular.

The building is beautiful and being relatively small, all the seats are close to the stage. The ballet in question was Die Bajadere composed by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalmana and first performed in 1921. The story was puerile and silly in the extreme and while I know the story line is not supposed to matter, a vaguely adult story line would help.

Performed in three parts over three hours, it wasn't too bad with a huge cast maintaining interest. In one act alone there were 30 ballerinas in white tutus on stage at the same time. Each part was just 45 minutes long so just when I was beginning to wriggle in my seat and to weary of pointy toed dancing, there was a break of 15 minutes when you could scull a couple of glasses of wine before the next act.

While I can wait a long time before I see another ballet I was glad I went.  The following day I happened to be speaking to a Scottish woman who had also been to the ballet and knew what she was talking about  - according to her the performance was excellent.