INVITATION TO THE BALLET

It was the usual dark and dreary day in mid-winter. The sun wasn’t shining so it was necessary to have the lights on in our home. Everyone at that time of year stays at home, if at all possible.

On one such day, I got a call from a friend saying her husband had received four tickets to the ballet from his boss and did we want to go. Neither she nor I had ever seen a live ballet, so we thought it would be fun.

It was extremely cold and the roads were slushy. The four of us were dressed in appropriate gear for winter weather. We wore heavy coats, scarves and hats, gloves and boots because we would have to walk from the parking lot to the nearby symphony hall.

After presenting our tickets, we were shown to our seats which were in fact box seats. If Queen Elizabeth had been in attendance, she would have been seated in our box which was virtually on top of the stage. Everyone could see the four of us bundled up in apparel suitable for a football game, so we tried to ignore the other people in the audience and were relieved when the lights were finally turned down.

Our first ballet was the story of “Romeo and Juliet” which was easy to follow and the music was familiar. Once you got over the idea that no one was going to speak, you could concentrate on the dance, itself. However, seated virtually on stage, you hear what most people don’t, the thudding sound of the dancers’ feet bouncing on the wood floor. Usually the audience is not that close and the symphony orchestra drowns out the loud thumps. I remembered all this when I saw a ballet on television last week and the cameras were close enough that you could actually hear the noise made when their dance shoes hit the floor.

The four of us really did enjoy the ballet and thought it was beautiful but we hoped no one in attendance recognized us. It’s obvious that if we had known where we were to be seated, we would have “dressed up” as they say in Pennsylvania.