We took a taxi to the Vaganova Academy and arrived on the dot of 10.45. The school, which is the feed for the Mariinsky Ballet Company, is almost completely renovated and, with its off-white walls, marble floors, alabaster balusters and coffee-coloured drapes, has an creamy calm about it. In the foyer we met up with Jill and Norman again who were full of the Sleeping Beauty performance they had seen the night before. The ballet took four hours from start to finish ,which surprised us. We couldn't figure out how they got another hour out of a set Tchaikovsky piece...
We were due to see the graduating class - the girls who would be finishing school next July, and hopefully entering the company. The Mariinsky takes on average twenty-two dancers each year but not every year produces a great crop of dancers - in 2009 all eleven boys in the grdauate class failed to get in.. The academy is subsidized by the government, not a single student pays fees; entry to the school is achieved purely on talent.
There was a relatively small number of students in the class, which the teacher, Madame Vassilieva, explained was due to illness. We also thought this might be a covert way of informing us that one or two of her star pupils were absent. And, much as I hate to say this, we didn't think much of the girls we saw. There were two beautiful dancers, one from Korea and another from Russia. The latter was small, however, so she will have to reach the standard of a soloist to be taken into the company. There is a current vogue for tall dancers.
Warming up.
The dancer on the far right was our pick for the future.
Class over, we said our good-byes to Jill and Norman, having exchanged promises to keep in touch. We then went our separate ways. The three of us meandered towards Nevsky Prospect and decided the Singer building with its top floor cafe might fit the bill for lunch.
St Petersburg has some lovely buildings constructed in the Art Deco period, of which the Singer is one. It now houses a large bookshop, on the lines of Barnes and Noble and Waterstones. We chose a table by the window, which turned out to be a huge mistake since the afternoon sun was streaming in turning us to toast. Not too long into our ham-and-cheese who should enter the cafe but Jill and Norman. I tell you, it's serendipity on sticks!
Since we were out on the town that night we decided a pit-stop at the hotel was called for, and the now familiar routine of smalls-washing, showers and, for me, playing catchup on my work.
Not wanting to risk another risotto failure at Teatro, we decided to try the hotel pektopah (that's Russian for restaurant, by the way, only I've probably got the spelling wrong). It turned out to be a wise choice, although we did have some fun deciphering the dishes on the menu. How would you feel about mush potatoes with your Stroganov or some caulyflower with your pike patties, and to finish a blackcurrent sambuk with wiped cream. Lurvly...
We arrived back at the Mariinsky just before curtain up at 7 pm. The performance we were about to watch was Eugene Onegin. I had seen the opera on several occasions and was smitten with Robert Carston's production at the Met in New York, which had Renee Flemming (Tatiana) and Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Onegin) in the lead roles. I was hoping it might be the same production but it was instead a very traditional one. Lovely though. The seats in the auditorium are actual chairs, so you can move them around, should you have a blot on your landscape in the row in front of you. (That's always happening to me, or is this small people's paranoia?) But this is the only benefit because they are kind of uncomfortable during a long act.
I have to say there is something very special about hearing Tchaikovsky played by Russian musicians in the city in which he lived and composed, and in the theatre in which Sleeping Beauty, Onegin and the rest would have been premiered. The playing was simply sublime.
Emerging from the stalls, we ran into Dimitri who was waiting to take us back stage. Several flights of stone steps later we were back in the company canteen - three Earl Grey teas, one with cold milk, please - and met his equally warm and generous wife, Galina. When the bell went for the next act, the three of us shot up, and were smartly waved back down again. "In the Mariinsky, there is no hurry..." The interval lasted almost fifty minutes. Now we understood why Beauty had taken four hours.
This laid-back attitude to intervals is symptomatic of the difference between Moscow and St Petersburg. In Moscow, everything is big, pressurized, fast and impersonal; in St Petersburg, people take time to smell the roses. Or is that the vodka...
Onegin was magical. Tatiana ( Viktoria Yastrebova) was just how you imagine her, limpid of eye, slim and dark - basically, exquisite with a voice to match; Onegin ( Vladimir Moroz) was picture-perfect too - he could have my hand in the Cotillon any time. If I do have a niggle it is about Yastrebova's performance. It was interpretation by numbers: on beat 4, take six steps to the chair; on beat 6, pick up handkerchief; beat 7, look depressed, dab cheeks with hanky.
Act 2 contained a surprise. As Onegin and Lensky prepared to duel it out a shot was heard in the wings. Now, we might all have thought it was part of the plot except Onegin and Lensky did a double-take, with the result that the audience began to titter.
During the second interval - yet another fifty minutes - we went backstage again, and this time we were allowed in the wings to watch the ballroom scene being set up. As you can see, we have some lovely photographs to remember it all by.
When we got back to the hotel we had a little too much adrenalin flowing through our systems to sleep so a nightcap seemed in order. The cocktail menu was very adventurous. We decided to pass on the Tequila Sunraze and the Blood Mary and ordered three Chilean Cab Sav's. Maybe we should have tried the Tequila Sunraze...
Night-night.
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