Садко

I was originally really excited to be back at the Mariinsky, as I had seen the ballet Swan Lake back in October. My excitement was relatively short-lived, however, as the four hour opera began. I was immediately reminded of the opera we had seen in Moscow, which is not why I lost my enthusiasm, but the set and costumes all seemed fairly similar. The set, in my opinion, was not similar, because whenever actors entered or exited through the background and brushed it, it sent a wave-like motion up the entire thing, which was sometimes a good thing as it distracted my attention away from some of the other things I didn't like that were happening on stage. Within the first five minutes of the first act, orange men dancers entered onto the stage, and immediately started dancing like two year olds. I know this may sound harsh, however I am confident that I am not the only person that holds this opinion.

My other major complaint would be about the one guy that when he sang, was barely audible. He seemed to have a lot of solos, or maybe I just noticed his solos more because it seemed like there was silence on state. When he did have solos, I started paying attention to those waves in the set once again. This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the singing overall, I felt that it was one of the better parts of the performance. I especially enjoyed the female singer that looked like a man, because as Nadia put it, "the one girl that sings really hurts my ears." It's not that I didn't like the King of the Underwater World's daughters' voice, it's just that my senses found the other woman's voice to be more appealing.

Beyond my complaints, I enjoyed the last act the best. I also enjoyed the last act of the other opera that we saw in Moscow, however that was more because of the incredible set. The set in the last act was also the best one, in my opinion, as it was this underwater world theme with a screen in front at first, so everything wasn't entirely visible. When the screen did lift, they threw in some ballet, which I really enjoyed. We were seated on the floor, which I really appreciated during the ballet section in the last act as I could see their footwork and etc. When I had seen Swan Lake, I was in one of the balcony sections, and I could not see their footwork.

I think I have come to the conclusion that opera may not be my "thing". I don't think this solely because of the, in my opinion, poor performance of Sadko. I simply find ballet to be more beautiful, and I enjoy knowing what is going on during plays. Even though there were subtitles, and it may have even been more clear since there were subtitles in both operas, I found the subtitles to be distracting as they were off to the side during the opera in Moscow, and above the stage during this performance at the Mariinsky. I have enjoyed some of the other theater performances we have seen in Russian more, even though at times I don't know exactly what the actors/actresses have said.