The Fountain of Bakhchisarai

Tonight, despite the cold outside and the invitingness of my bed and my comfy blankets, and the fact that I've developed an attachment to sitting by my window sipping delicious hot chocolate made with hot milk, I made it to the opera.  Tonight's opera was "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai".  Because of the title, I was expecting a Mongolian opera, but then, when I went to buy my ticket, I saw a notice on the wall that said it was an opera by Puccini, so then I was expecting some kind of Italian opera.  Imagine my surprise!  It was closer to a Mongolian show after all!  So, when I got home, I googled "Fountain of Bakhchisarai" and found that it was actually originally a poem by Pushkin.  But, my surprise didn't actually stop at the fact that it was a Mongolian-type performance.  I was also surprised to find that I was watching a ballet, not an opera.  The poster outside definitely said that the show was an opera, but I adore the ballet, so I was so happy to find that the sign outside was misleading and we were watching the ballet version of this story, instead.  And it was so cool.  It was part classical ballet, part character ballet, part Ukrainian-type dancing, part belly dancing (en pointe), and all beautiful.  This is my second Mongolian ballet that I've seen.  I have to admit that I think I enjoyed the other Mongolian ballet (The Three Hills of Misfortune) slightly better, but really only slightly.  Maybe tomorrow, I'll post some pics from The Three Hills of Misfortune so you can see what I'm talking about, and later on either next week or next month, I'll post some pictures which I took from The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.

State Opera and Ballet Theatre 4

I am all out of ballet and opera tickets.  Horror of horrors!  I bought about six tickets, and the last ticket was for this past Saturday.  Actually, I have a small confession to make: for the past few weeks in a row, when it came time to go to the Opera House to use my ticket which I had already bought, I looked out my window at the cold day in Ulaanbaatar, I looked at my cosy, comfortable bed, I looked back out the window, I looked back at my bed, I considered which piece was being performed, I considered the money I would be wasting (less than $5, in both cases), I checked the schedule to see if I could catch the piece later on in the year, and I dove into bed and placed my covers over my head and fell soundly asleep.  Two weeks in a row!  Well, now I'm out of tickets, and I'm thinking that maybe if I'm going to pull that stunt very often, maybe I shouldn't buy any more tickets, but noooooo!  I love the State Opera and Ballet Theatre.  Once I actually motivate myself to leave my apartment and go out into the cold day, and once I actually arrive at the theatre, I love it!  I seriously love everything about this theatre!  Tomorrow, when the box office opens up, I'll buy maybe eight more tickets... that should keep me entertained until January.  And by the way, I really want this painting!

State Opera and Ballet Theatre 3

The other week, I arrived at the State Opera and Ballet Theatre to find a before-the-show performance of throat singing and traditional instruments (and free wine!).  Check out the morin khuur (pronounced 'moron whore', remember? check out my earlier post "A Moron Whore" for the whole spiel on pronunciation) and the badass horsehead contrabass!  Also, with regard to the weird circular dot in front of the morin khuur, I'm not sure what it is or how it got in the picture.  None of the pictures which I took either immediately before or immediately after this one (within seconds of taking this one) had the same dot on them, so I don't think I had anything on my lens.  The only other explanation I can think of is a ghosty... we all know that opera houses and old theatres are all haunted, anyway, so it's a likely story...

State Opera and Ballet Theatre 2

When you walk into the State Opera and Ballet Theatre, this is what you usually see.  There is also a coat check to one side, and a kind of sad-looking concession to the other side (you can buy Bounty bars there-- I have never been to a ballet or opera where I could purchase Bounty, Mars, or Snickers bars at intermission!), but I'm not showing you a picture of that, because if you ignore the kind of sad-looking coat check and the extremely sad-looking concession, it is an extremely nice theatre.  I also really like this ballet Benz ad they have rocking the foyer at the moment. More to come about my total unexpected love for this theatre later on...

The State Opera and Ballet Theatre

Lonely Planet describes the State Opera and Ballet Theatre as the salmon-pinkish building at the Southeast end of Sukhbaatar Square, and they definitely not wrong about that, but maybe I'm reading a little too much into it, but it seems like the author of LP doesn't think much of salmon-pinkish buildings, as though he thinks the State Opera and Ballet Theatre would have been better suited with a different colour.  To be honest, yes, it is a weird colour, but I've never seen a building that colour before, so it's interesting to me (incidentally, UB has at least three buildings that are a salmon-pinkish colour-- maybe they got a huge discount on stucco/paint that colour).  I also like th big concrete lions at the entrance and the Corinthian columns.  Walking into the theatre on a day when there is an opera or ballet is really very exciting.  Stay tuned to see what the inside of the theatre looks like (which I'll put up in a later post).