It is a slight lie to say this was my first ballet, as my very first theatrical experience was watching The Nutcracker age 10 with my school. But we spent most of our time trying to force the binoculars out of the holders without paying and eating sweets – not a great start to my theatre obsession. But last night Queen’s Theatre, Barnstaple (my local) invited me for a tour/chat and to watch Swan Lake performed by the Moscow Ballet – La Classique.

I was very dubious at first; I had studied ballet briefly at university and seen snippets over the years, but I still thought it a very high-brow genre and not for me. I predicted the audience would be middle aged and upwards, and to a certain degree I was correct, although there were a couple of people my age and even children who clearly had a longer attention span than I did at their age. I wasn’t surprised however that the night’s performance was sold out; I haven’t lived in Devon long but I was quick to realise this is a county that loves live entertainment from ballets in theatres to folk bands in pubs.

The Queen’s Theatre is a small venue in comparison to the big London and city theatres, yet that was what appealed to me; I love intimate theatre spaces so the idea of being up close and personal with the dancers sounded thrilling. I found it endearing that you could hear every landing from leaps and lifts and the tap-tap sound as they drifted across stage en pointe. The biggest bonus was that I really got the difference between Odette and Odile: Nadeja Ivanova danced Odile with a slightly manic gleam in her eye and a smile you wouldn’t trust. There was an obvious change in music and dance style to accompany this but it was her facial expressions that really sold it. The same goes for The Fool performed by Georgy Migunov, who undoubtedly stole every scene with his comic timing – the audience loved him. I was seated at the back of the stalls and I still got all the facial messages they were projecting and that’s what I enjoyed; I couldn’t help but feel I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much in a larger theatre.

The only negatives were that I found it jarring how after every dance section when the audience applauded they then bowed. I am from a tradition where bowing is saved until the end, so I found this distracting and it made it hard to get lost in the story, so I was never sure if the focus was on the dancing or plot. I also found myself distracted by sympathy for the role of the Prince, who seemed to be there purely to facilitate the talent of the Prima Ballerina. He was very engaging to watch so it would have been nice to see more of his skills, but I’m guessing Swan Lake isn’t really the vehicle for that.

So would I see another ballet? The answer is yes, but only in a small regional theatre like The Queen’s – I wouldn’t pay large amounts of money to visit a larger venue. Plus the audience made it such a joy, any audience which boos the villain during the bows of a ballet and cheers the Swan and Prince is a pretty amazing crowd to have any theatrical experience with in my book.

Image by Chris Hays.