Zurich - Ballet

Inside Zurich's Beautiful Opera House

One of the best things about living in Zurich is that there are always plenty of things going on and I can get to see cultural events that aren’t really available in Hurghada (it’s a luxury item, after all). So, over the last week, I’ve managed to go to the ballet twice. It’s typical that there’s nothing for ages and then a whole raft of things happen at the same time.

The first one was Nederland Dans Theatre (NDT) – an old favorite of mine. It was in Oerlikon and I met Lena after work, when the weather was still beautiful, so we sat outside and had a curry beforehand at the nearby restaurant. A curry sitting outside in the evening sunshine followed by a ballet – life can’t get much better than that! Moreover, Lena had managed to get a half-price deal for the tickets.

It was a great performance as usual. Actually, it was NDT 2, the younger version of NDT; most of the pieces centred round human / love relationships in one way or another and at times, I thought, exuded sensuality. There was also some teasing of the audience, particularly at the end, where one dancer was even nude but carefully hidden, until the very end of the performance. It was lighthearted, modern, and yet classical. I came out of it with a reinforced feeling of how very lucky I am to be alive and what an amazing thing life, and people, can be.

The other ballet was equally astounding but a complete contrast. It was the premier of Faust with the Zurich Ballet and it took place in the opera house, so tickets were four times more expensive! By contrast to NDT 2, the tone for Faust was spooky and dark; the music perfectly created the tone for the starkly dramatic scenes that played out on the stage.

I’ve never studied Faust and I don’t even know it very well (the ballet was just part one of Faust), but I find it surprising that Goethe, who I think of as a well-educated academic himself, should portray the quest for knowledge as something that eventually leads to ruin (as a philosopher, the quest for knowledge was always regarded as good; although I remember feeling a certain admiration for Darwin when I heard that he was physically sick when he came up with the evolution of the species, but pursued that theory nevertheless because he thought it was the truth – which made me ask myself whether it is good to seek knowledge even if you think it’s evil, and I guess that’s where the Faust story starts to connect…).

Anyway, the ballet was perhaps one of the most dramatic I’ve ever seen. Somehow the background dancers in the scenes really added to the spookiness, I guess like something lurking in the dark that you can’t quite grasp.

So, two very different performances, inspiring very different reactions, but both were brilliant. I’m so lucky that I myself can live between two worlds!