The Ballet
There are two theatres in Seoul showing the ballet right now. The Universal Arts Centre and the Seoul Arts Centre. We went to the first. It was great! I haven't been to many ballets. The only one I've been to was Oedipus Rex. Actually, that is an opera. I guess that means I haven't been to any. Plus that one ended with a bunch of naked, thriving, plagued sick bodies in a pile. The Nutcracker is slightly more cheerful.
Although I've played much of the music from the Nutcracker, it was great to see it set to dance and watch it from a different perspective.
Theatre Etiquette
Theatre etiquette is largely similar to Canadian theatre etiquette, but there were some major differences. Applause was different. Instead of waiting until after a set of pieces were played people just clapped after every big piece. Also, people felt the need to clap after someone did a nice ballet dance move on stage... as if we were watching an ice skating competition.
Now, I'm not sure about ballet etiquette, so I may be wrong... but in Canada, at an orchestra concert, you usually wait until after all of the movements of a piece are done to applaud. You don't applaud after a musician completes a hard technical passage either! haha.
Anyway, I'm not picky about this stuff, these are just observations I made. Oh, one thing I didn't like was when children insisted on having the 'last clap'... they would be clapping single claps until about 2 minutes into a new scene. I wanted to throw a shoe at them, but I like my shoes.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the show and I would definately go to see it again!
Here are some pictures from my adventure.
Seoul Station - the subway station that's equivalent to Union Station in Toronto
The Universal Arts Centre in Seoul
Inside the UAC
The foreigners in the display... one of those foreigners decided to put his jacket on the little man.
Then this guy came out who reminded me of the Blue Meanies from the Beatles' Yellow Submarine movie. Scared me a bit.
The inside.
Illegal picture I think. "No cameras allowed"...
Nice pic of the tree out front after the show.
That was my day. I'm still on Christmas break until Friday, so I will be taking many pictures. Especially on New Years Eve / Day. So far we have rough plans of going to a foreigner section of Seoul to celebrate the new year.
Alright, until next time!!
I saw a version of The Nutcracker in November in Brantford, it was called "Group of Seven Nutcracker" and it was the traditional ballet with the regular Tchaikovsky music, except it was set in Canada and a lot of the characters were different things - the rat king was a bat, for example. And the sugar plum fairy was a butterfly. But at the performance, everyone clapped after each piece. So I don't know if that's how it's supposed to be or not.
ReplyDeleteThe concert hall looks really nice. Did you see the 2 old men from Sesame Street in the balcony? I'm pretty sure I'd rather hear the UWO Ensemble than the Nutcracker. I can't deal with ballets....Ian Kivell on Piano-French Horn, cello, bass, clarinet, trumpet, bassoon, violin ..., Bluegrass or Rod Stewart works for me.
ReplyDeleteLindsay really likes to send out the message of "peace"! Have fun on your Seoul trip!