KVT – A Glorious Silken Moment

Thirty wonderful minutes at the Opera House last weekend.
The lights dimmed. The curtain opened to show a young man ready to let a lantern fly into the night sky and the magic began.

And oh what magic! Bach cello suites poured through the auditorium: music like sweet honey… music to weave through warm spring evenings and softly misting mua xuan…. glorious choreography… glorious dance… glorious lanterns…

Magic is magic and needn’t be elaborated on.

If only I could afford it I’d pay cellist Yo Yo Ma to accompany these wonderful dancers, live, in Bamboo Rain and Heart of Silk. What a world class celebration of contemporary dance we’d have.

Imagine them dancing on the bamboo set of last week’s Bridge in Gia Lam!

I’d pay top dollar to see the company dance a week season of Bamboo Rain, Heart of Silk, Amnesia and The Firebird. I’d pay top Euros to see Spartacus again and again if it was given a good stage set.

If I’d realized that the dance came last on the program I’d have waited until interval to get to Nha Hat Lon. The National Opera and Ballet Orchestra always makes me feel nervous but when the orchestra started the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore, I was amazed. They were quite good and the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet choir was in beautiful voice, so I relaxed. When things began to go strange in the string section at the beginning of the soprano’s aria from Madam Butterfly I grinned and stayed relaxed. They played beautifully for the Toreador’s aria from Carmen and the baritone was believable.

Then when Luu Hong Quang sat at the grand piano for Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No1, the orchestra was in top form and played Pytor Illich’s opening bars almost perfectly… but somehow they lost him and spent almost three movements desperately searching for him until, just as the pianist was ready to pound out the last few bars, Tchaikovsky was discovered again and the concerto thundered to a fitting finale.

Before the dance the Choir gave us a lovely bit of Beethoven translated into Tieng Viet, hummed a bit of Saint Saens and ended with a lovely Ave Maria that gave the sopranos a lot of room to show off their vocal range.

Then… the orchestra pit opened and I thought… My goodness the orchestra is going to play for the ballet! I got up ready to flee but realized it was the piano being lowered below stage level.

The lights dimmed. The curtain opened to show a young man ready to let a lantern fly into the night sky and magic began…