A little bit of culture

Anara's neighbor works at the music conservatory, and they are having a month-long celebration of music. I inquired about going to a concert, and Anara inquired with her neighbor, who came home with VIP tickets for nearly every concert for the entire month. It's all about connections here. I would have been happy buying regular tickets, but it's not like I can refuse them. I'll see if anyone at work wants the extras.

So Saturday we're getting all dolled up and going to the conservatory. I'll let you know what it's like.

Discussing this cultural event reminds me of the night Steve and I went to the Opera, so I shall blog about that.

The Abai Opera House is quite lovely. I understand from the British Airways inflight magazine that the opera house was built buy Italian POWs, presumably WWII. It got a face lift not too long ago, and was beautiful, indeed. Don't you agree?

Now, this was my first opera so I don't have much to compare it to. I thought the singing was great. The costumes and scenery were also very, very well done. The dancing wasn't so hot. The ballet dancers definitely looked like novices. In fact, some where so bad that I started wondering if it was status/money/connections that got them their jobs. (That is very, very common here. Status buys university slots, jobs, permits.... As do bribes. Bribing is so common in some fields that a noun has been developed from the verb "to bribe" to describe a person who takes bribes for a living. Customs officials, for example. But I digress....)

To be fair, the only other ballet I've been to as an adult is the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, which is the best of the best. So I may be comparing the Almaty dancers to an impossibly high standard. But still. Even Steve felt like it was almost comic watching them.

We watched two acts of Aida and then blew before the final act. There was a screen to the right of the stage that described what was taking place in Russian, but by the time I read it and figured it out, then tried to translate and whisper the main points to Steve, I would miss another screen of explanation. And to be perfectly honest, it wasn't that interesting. We definitely enjoyed our cocktails more than the opera. So much for being culture vultures...