Drew and I leave Moscow in less than a month. . . for good. Perhaps we will return sometime for a visit, but never again to live, as we have for the last seven years. In his farewell remarks to a gathering of Anglo American School of Moscow parents last week, Drew spoke of "symmetry," of beginnings and endings being in balance, bookends that define time and experiences. Intentionally and intuitively, we find ourselves placing bookends neatly on our Moscow shelf, as we repeat activities we did when we first arrived.
Last Friday night we attended a performance of Swan Lake. It is the final ballet we will see in Moscow, and it was the first we experienced when we arrived. It is my absolute favorite! From the orchestra's first haunting notes, I'm transported into the world of Odette and Odile, Prince Siegfried, and Von Rothbart, an evil sorcerer. The ballerinas' white feathered tutus and head-dresses, along with their meticulous imitations of a swan's delicate, vulnerable, yet powerful movements, trick my senses into believing that they are real. At one point, the stage is enveloped in total whiteness as 25 swans dance as one.
Beyond the grandeur of the performers, their dancing, costumes, the setting, story and emotions ranging from hope to despair, it's the music that holds me in a magical trance. How did Pyotr (Peter) Tchaikovsky, how does any composer, create such brillance out of what is only the mist of an idea, floating invisibly over the surface of a lake or the top of a tree, just out of reach?
I remember contemplating this same question a couple of years ago as I visited Tchaikovsky's home in Klin, 85 km northwest of Moscow.
The hugeness of his talent hung in each room of the house like the portrait that greeted us as we entered the door.
Among the facts, stories and intricacies of Tchaikovsky's life, our guide, Felix, shared an insight that hinted at an answer to my question. "Tchaikovsky," he said, "moved from Moscow to Klin to escape the noise of the city. In the noise, he could not hear the music. It was here, in the quiet of the countryside, that he would walk through the fields, among the cows, and hear the music in his head." Was it nature, or the solitude that nature provides that allowed the elusive mist, the first notes of a composition, to edge into his thoughts? I picture him running back to his writing desk, dodging a cow here or there, to empty the music onto paper.
Only Tchaikovsky, of course, knew how his creativity grew from idea to reality. As a listener of the ballet he created 136 years ago, I sit transfixed until the final note, grateful for the opportunity to be surrounded by his music, watching the dancers interpret it on stage. The shimmering blue, gold and black curtains close; the music stops. The rhymthic clapping, the trademark of Russian audiences, pounds its approval. I attempt to capture the curtain call on video, a lasting memory tucked snugly inside the bookend.
Last Friday night we attended a performance of Swan Lake. It is the final ballet we will see in Moscow, and it was the first we experienced when we arrived. It is my absolute favorite! From the orchestra's first haunting notes, I'm transported into the world of Odette and Odile, Prince Siegfried, and Von Rothbart, an evil sorcerer. The ballerinas' white feathered tutus and head-dresses, along with their meticulous imitations of a swan's delicate, vulnerable, yet powerful movements, trick my senses into believing that they are real. At one point, the stage is enveloped in total whiteness as 25 swans dance as one.
Beyond the grandeur of the performers, their dancing, costumes, the setting, story and emotions ranging from hope to despair, it's the music that holds me in a magical trance. How did Pyotr (Peter) Tchaikovsky, how does any composer, create such brillance out of what is only the mist of an idea, floating invisibly over the surface of a lake or the top of a tree, just out of reach?
I remember contemplating this same question a couple of years ago as I visited Tchaikovsky's home in Klin, 85 km northwest of Moscow.
The hugeness of his talent hung in each room of the house like the portrait that greeted us as we entered the door.
Among the facts, stories and intricacies of Tchaikovsky's life, our guide, Felix, shared an insight that hinted at an answer to my question. "Tchaikovsky," he said, "moved from Moscow to Klin to escape the noise of the city. In the noise, he could not hear the music. It was here, in the quiet of the countryside, that he would walk through the fields, among the cows, and hear the music in his head." Was it nature, or the solitude that nature provides that allowed the elusive mist, the first notes of a composition, to edge into his thoughts? I picture him running back to his writing desk, dodging a cow here or there, to empty the music onto paper.
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