Ballet birthday

For my 30th birthday I went to the San Francisco Ballet to see Balanchine's Apollo and two other short ballets. It was my first trip to the War Memorial Opera House, and I was surprised at its size and opulence. Although I did not feel excluded, I felt that this was a place for the few. On my walk down the marble steps to the bathroom, I passed a fancy restaurant-lounge where the wealthy were having brunch and champagne. On my walk up the marble steps to my seat, I passed two of three more fancy cafes were people were sipping wine.

I found my seat and looked around: a healthy, wealthy, well-cared-for hall. I admired and feared the gold detailing, the silver sunburst chandelier, the tasseled curtains. I decided this was a strange but necessary institution: the great cities of the world need these ostentatious theaters to draw out the aspirations and strivings of the world's artists.

I was flanked by a middle-aged woman and an older man. They spoke to me briefly; they held season tickets, and I was a stranger. Although I suspected they were somehow relieved that I was "one of them"—despite my jeans, I could have been much more "other"—I decided to put aside my own fears and be friendly and honest. I told them this was my first visit to the SF Ballet, and I had recently seen some video footage of Apollo and looked forward to seeing it live.

People piled in. I couldn't believe that so many people could actually like the ballet. I'm still searching for an explanation. Is it simply numbers? That is, in a city this large, is it simply probable that a few thousand will be at the ballet on a given Sunday?

The lights dimmed. There was applause for a conductor I could not see, and the small orchestra began playing Stravinsky's score, once so rebellious, now melodious, and made even more gentle by the enormous space of the hall. Leto gave birth, and Apollo, unwrapped from swaddling, took the stumbling but beautiful first steps of a child god. It was beautiful, and I was sad when I saw the steps and platform representing Olympus lit and Apollo and the muses slowly stepping toward it: Apollo would climb the mountain of the gods and the ballet would be over.

The next ballet was deeply dissatisfying. It was the world premiere (they were eager to say) of Blue Rose. A pianist and a violinist took the back stage and played ragtime music, the pianist with slipping fingers crunching chords and a right hand barely daring to flourish, and the violin weakly doubling the melody in places. Also unusual, the violinist's bow fell into the piano and there was a wooden racket as he tried to pull it out in time to play. A few fast dances in the ballet were exhilarating, but the rest was uninspired ballroom dances. I was surprised to discover that the choreographer was none other than the artistic director of the SF Ballet. What, I wonder, possessed him to create something so lukewarm?

The last ballet, Quaternary, was a ballet of the seasons. A ridiculously self-aware gimmick formed the background: an outline of a rectangle created by two or three rows of fluorescent tubes. At curtain rise, the whole thing flashed on for a second, and then some of the tubes went out, leaving only some sides of the rectangle visible. As winter turned to spring, the inside of the rectangle lifted from black to a dull green-screen green, and the lights shifted so that other sides of the rectangle were visible. At the end of the ballet, though I didn't notice for a while because there were so many goddamn dancers on the stage, the sides of the rectangle began to separate and float apart. Their silly destinations were lost behind the fall of the curtain, and when it rose again the dumb thing was put back together and seemed to want applause.

What use criticism? None, maybe.