Estreiiita

I'm sorry the link I provided before, didn't work. So for half an hour ago the new season for RDB was revealed! For me the coming season looks much better than this one. The information can be found on the website of the RDB, but I can say that we'll see 3 works of Balanchine in one set (Serenade, Symphony in C and 4 Temperaments) , "Folk tale" of Bournonville, "Blood wedding" (full time ballet by Eukene Saques, our solist), "Sleeping beauty", "The Nutcracker", "Don Quixote", "The Great Gatsby"(choreography of Arthur Pita!), Ballet de Luxe - excerpts from Bournonville's and Petipa's ballets ) and some children performances.

Yesterday I saw "Don Quichotte" performed by Opera national de Paris in Opera Bastille. It was the first time I saw this ballet in Rudolf Nureev's choreography and I liked it a lot. Hannah O'Neill danced Kitri. I like this ballerina since I saw her in "Le rouge au le noir" and I hoped for a brilliant performance on her part. However she was good but not at the level I expected. Basilio was danced by Germain Louvet, and his performance was not impeccable either; I'd say it was somewhat uneven, some parts were very good but there were some small faults especially in duos/lifts. Both Kitri's friends, Nais Duboscq and Bianca Scudamore were very good as well as Street dancer (Celia Drouy) and Espada (Arthus Raveau). The young gypsy (Daniel Stokes), two female gypsies (Katherine Higgins and Seohoo Yun) and the whole gypsy group along with the King and the Queen of gypsies danced very well in the 2nd act. The dream of Don Quichotte was danced brilliantly with the help of the corps de ballet, the Queen of the Dryads (Camille Bon), Cupidon(Aubane Philbert) and Dulcinee (Hannah O'Neill). To my mind, the 3d act was the best, everything went well and the performance ended with a lot of applauses.

For 10 days ago, on the 20th of March I attended the programme "Giant steps" at the Royal theater in Copenhagen. It consisted of Balanchine's "Serenade" , "4th Symphony of Sibelius" by Jorma Elo and Harald Lander's "Etudes". "Serenade" was danced beautifully (Stacy Caddell was the instructor), the main parts were performed by the principal dancers Stephanie Chen Gundorf, Wilma Giglio, Gregory Dean and the soloists Tara Schaufuss and Sebastian Pico Haynes, but some members of the corps de ballet , especially Isabella Walsh, Isabella Carroll, Katherine Stevens and Lania Atkins also were quite noticeable along with the soloists Mayo Arii and Eukene Saques. "4th symphony of Sibelius" was created by Jorma Elo especially for RDB and took premiere on the 2nd of March this year. This short ballet tells the story of 7 brothers that after their parents' death go to the woods to look for the fortune (it's actually based on the novel "Seven brothers" of the finnish writer Aleksis Kivi (1870). There are 11 dancers in this ballet, 10 men and a woman (danced by Wilma Giglio). 10 men dancers represent 7 brothers and also a group that creates a background (authorities, aggressors and an outside danger). Elo divides the ballet in 4 parts: the first one is somewhat mystical and sad, telling about the 7 brothers who just lost their parents. The second one shows the charm of the youth, first discovery of the opposite sex, first parties, first contradictions with the usual norms. In the 3d part there comes love in the form of a woman, probably a potential patner, but also the problems with the law and authorities take place. At last, in the 4th part everything seems to fall into place, most of the brothers find the person to marry with and in the book everything ends well, but Jorma Elo, using Sibelius' music that is very introvert and at the same time almost explosive, makes us think about the way we live - when the majority of us choose a very predictable life, get married when reaching a certain age, get children, become grandparents, pensionists, but the question is, do we live the life we want or do we live the life chosen for us by society? In this ballet there are some interesting duos and ensemble dances, performed by the principal Jonathan Chmelensky, soloists Tobias Praetorius, Guilherme de Menezes, Liam Redhead and the members of the corps de ballet. Most of all I liked "Etudes", where Emma Riis-Kofoed danced ballerina and Jon Axel Fransson and Alban Lendorf were her partners. Alban Lendorf especially was brilliant in his dancing and very attentive to the female partner. It was a very good performance. By the way, for those fond of classical ballet and John Neumeier's creations it'll be possible to watch "Raymonda" of RDB and "Neumeier's Gala" at Tivoli concert hall in Copenhagen during the same weekend in the middle of May.

I happened to see "La fille mal gardee" in Opera Garnier on the 27th of March. It was the first time I watched this ballet live and I liked it enormously. Clara Mousseigne danced Lise, and she was charming, flawless turns, impeccable jumps - light like a feather! Also her acting was superb. Her Colas, Antonio Conforti, danced and acted well but somehow didn't leave any remarkable impression, something was lacking. I liked Aurelien Gay as Alain a lot, there were many funny nuances in his performance, and Florimond Lorieux as Mother Simone was both a woman of character and a loving mother wanting the best (according to her ideas) for her child. Jean-Baptiste Chavignier played Thomas, Alain's father and was quite believable in his performance. And of course Le Coq (Aurelien Hoguet) and the four chickens were very funny through the whole performance. The whole ensemble did their best to create a very enjoyable ballet and I left the theater wishing to watch "La fille mal gardee" again!

Oh, I'm so sorry, I somehow managed to publish just the contents of the programme which I intended to write about! It was a wonderful programme in Paris, in Theatre des Champs-Elysees, last Monday and Tuesday!

Last Monday I saw a very interesting programme of short pieces in Theater des Champs Elysee in Paris. It lasted just for 1 hour 15 min and included: 1) Giselle: Acte II- pas de deux (Giselle et Albrecht). The dancers from the Ballet de l'Opera National du Rhin Ana Enriquez and Avery Reiners danced very well but the modern choreography of Martin Chaix didn't impress me at all. 2) Gravite (Extraits) performed by dancers from Ballet Preljocaj (Mirea Delogu, Antoine Dubois, Clara Freschel, Baptiste Coissieu (choreography of Angelin Preljocaj) - a beautiful piece showing a great capability of the dancers both in balance, acrobatic lifts, pilates-similar movements and in general creating a very nice impression. 3) Softly, as I leave you - piece for 2 dancers, performed by Helene Bernadou and Kylian Tilagone from Ballet d'Opera National de Bordeaux, choreography of Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot - somewhat dark piece, starting with the brusque movements of a woman restricted by the box she's kept in. 4) On the Nature of Daylight - duo performed by Ana Enriquez and Avery Reiners from Ballet d'Opera National du Rhin, choreography of David Dawson - light, beautiful, very positive. 5) Who cares? - last piece performed by 4 etoiles (Dorothee Gilbert, Hannah O'Neill, Valentine Colasante and Mathieu Ganio), chorepgraphy of George Balanchine to the music of Gershwin : absolutely joyful, a pleasure to watch, and most of alI I liked Hannah O'Neill, she especially was superb! Theater des Champs-Elysees is very much worth of checking: it will host Norwegian ballet, Boston ballet, the ballet about Audrey Hepburn and, I'm sure, many other fine performances!

Our "newest" prima, Astrid Elbo, has a height of 180 cm. In one of the interviews she says that when one is that tall, it requires a lot to control the body and during her first years in the theater she often felt herself like Bambi on the ice. She remembers that Nikolaj (Hubbe) said to her:"When one is as tall as you, it's either to be always in the back or try to be extremely good, to be placed in front". And she adds that for her it was no doubt, what would she aim for. I'm looking forward to see her in a new creation of Sebastian Kloborg in April. She dances now mostly with Ryan Tomash, also quite tall. By the way, I was quite impressed by a new member of our danish corps de ballet, Lania Atkins, who's also quite tall - I saw her as a Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella", and she was excellent, a true queen of the ballet! So the tall female dancers can surely find their place even in the companies where the majority of dancers is of average height.

I hope you'll write about the performance as I'm going to see it on the 20th of March.

I saw "The Peony Pavilion" they performed in December 2016 in Sadler's Wells and liked it enormously though it was not a pure ballet, more a combination of the opera, folklore and ballet. I remember beautiful girls of the same height and complexion from the corps - amazing uniformity! And the principal dancers were great! Here's the article of Graham Watts about the performance: https://bachtrack.com/es_ES/review-peony-pavilion-national-ballet-china-sadlers-wells-november-2016

I was at the day performance the next day after the premiere and I would say, the theatre was almost full, the audience consisting mainly of elderly spectators; the reviews though are quite encouraging so I won't be surprised if some performances will be sold out, especially those of the end of the week and with Alban Lendorf as Virgil.

Last Sunday I was in Copenhagen to see " The Dante project" and liked it even more than the previous time in Paris. Gregory Dean was Dante in our performance and was great both technically and artistically, creating a very convincing image of a poet. Alexander Staeger was Vergil but to say the truth, he hasn't left any special impression with his performance. Holly Dorger was grown up Beatrice and danced beautifully, as well as Eukene Saques ( young Beatrice) and Freja Danchell ( Beatrice as a girl). The first act was the one that I liked most ( well, it's also a longest). The corps de ballet performed great through the whole performance, though I would probably preferred more subtle portraying of the sinners : thus, when Francesca and Paolo ( Eukene Saques and Jon Axel Fransson) were on the scene, some parts of their bodies ( evidently, those, mainly taking part in committing sin), were quite noticeably marked with the chalk, almost on the border of satire - I' m not sure if it's choreographer's idea or just the dancers' (who danced their duo very sensually and beautifully). I like both Eukene Saques and Jon Axel Fransson; Eukene could not, probably, be considered as having classic ballet dancer's body type but she manages to create a good character while being on scene and always leaves a good impression - with her artistic abilities she reminds me Kizzy Matiakis. And Jon Axel, being one of the principal dancers of RDB always provides a high quality of dancing. I also liked the ferrymen: Guilherme de Menezes and Silvia Selvini, both of them soloists. Meirambek Nazargozhayev was excellent as Odysseus( Ulysses in the original version?), soloist Camilla Ruelykke Holst was wonderful Dido and the pas de quatre of the "angry": Lania Atkins, Tomoka Kawazoe, Stephanie Sahlgren and Isabella Walsh was superb, well performed at a good speed. Nathan Campiano danced Pope's adagio very well and a the end of the first act the principal dancer Wilma Giglio came out as both tempting and cruel Satan. The orchestra played great under the guidance of Robert Houssart and though the music sometimes could sound somewhat dissonant, it suited the ballet's content quite well. The ballet was received with a lot of applauses and "Bravo" shouts, and as I could see, the public was very content, so I hope, it will stay with RDB for some years. Many thanks to Wayne McGregor, Thomas Ades and other creators of this wonderful ballet!

Probably somebody have already seen this, but still - a youtube video about the World Ballet Day 2023 in Royal Danish ballet, including a rehearsal of "Dante":

Let's hope there'll be another chance to say "hello", I'll surely try to visit Berlin as often as possible! I'd love to say hello to Victor Caixeta as well, especially to tell him how much I liked his debut as Albrecht! I saw later on Instagram that John Neumeier was in Berlin as well - evidently, "Bovary" is quite popular!

Oh, I'm so sorry - Tramp, of course! 😅

Yesterday I travelled to Leipzig (about an hour and a half from Berlin) to see the day performance (luckily it was a holiday in Saxony) of Mario Schroder's ballet "Chaplin". First of all I should say that Leipzig itself is very much worth of visiting and with luck you can both have sightseeing, theater visit and even gastronomy experience. The trip can be easily organised from Berlin, though in our particular case we had some troubles with German railroads (Deutsche bahn), or rather DB had troubles with the trains and timetable. Leipzig has a big and impressive opera house quite close to the railway station and city center. "Chaplin" was created for some 10 years ago and was filmed on DVD; I've found a good article about this ballet : https://www.hdvdarts.com/titles/chaplin.html , so I'll just write about my impressions. Through the whole performance (1,5 hours, no break) I kept staring fascinated at the stage. Chaplin itself (Alessandro Repellini) and Trump (Monica Barbotte) caught our attention from the start, but each one of the performers was delivering the great dance experience, every movement, every glance, every expression. The mother was danced by Ester Ferrini and she indeed managed to show the loss of mind and the torn soul. The father was danced by Carl van Godtsenhoven, Mildred by Kalina Petkova, Paulette by Soojeong Choi, Oona by Vivian Wang and Dictator was Joao Ludwig. The corps de ballet did amazing job at the incredible speed. It's difficult to name the scene I liked most, everything was presented at the highest level but of course Charlie and Trump were absolutely divine. It was my fourth ballet in four days but the first one with true ovations in the end and Mario Schroder himself was on the scene to receive them.

Last Monday I happened to be in Berlin and watch "Bovary" in Deutsche Oper. Christian Spuck had become the revelation for me during the covid pandemia when we had a chance to watch his "Winterrejse" from Zurich. When it was announced that he would lead Staatsballett Berlin, I personally looked forward to that and reserved the ticket to "Bovary" as soon as it was possible. In our cast the main role was performed by Polina Semionova and she was fantastic: beautiful, touching, passionate, despaired and determined. Matthew Knight was Charles Bovary, Cohen Aitchison-Dugas danced Leon (he and Polina had a beautiful duo in the 2nd act!), Martin ten Kortenaar was Rodolphe and Dominik White Slavkovsky created an excellent portrait of monsieur Lheureux. As I see it, Christian Spuck and his team make not just the ballet, but the whole experience. The scenography, the costumes, the videofilms on the back screen, the music (sometimes quite tense but creating the necessary atmosphere), and also the excerpts from the novel read by Elisabeth Edl (and luckily the subtitles in English were provided) - gave a perfect combination helping to get dissolved in the hopes, feelings and deeds of the characters on the scene. And of course the corps de ballet here was superb - the people of Yonville and Rouen, the ball visitors, the soldiers, the girls and the poison. Spuck knows how to guide his dancers to draw public's attention! This evening was sold out and there were a lot of ovations and "Bravo!" exclamations in the end. I personally liked the performance a lot and will look forward to the next creations of Christian Spuck.

I was lucky to visit Amsterdam last weekend and enjoy two great performances of "Giselle". I believe that nowadays the Dutch National Ballet is one of the best ballet companies in Europe and I would willingly see any of their principals dancing any main role. I liked the scenography of the performance, starting with the view of a peaceful bohemian village in a morning mist and immediately creating a medieval atmosphere. On Saturday the main roles were danced by the principals Maia Makhateli and Victor Caixeta (I think it was his debut as Albrecht), and it was absolutely delightful. They both danced not only technically perfect but also interacted so well, that we just saw a young couple totally in love with each other, the innocent girl, willingly believing that she met her soulmate and the young prince, who was overwhelmed by love and tenderness and forgot all about his descent and family obligations. Maia Makhateli has been flowing around the scene like a feather, her beautiful eyes had never left her fiancee and Victor Caixeta had followed her with devotion and adoration - until the horrible moment when the truth about him was revealed. Illarion was danced by Sem Sjouke who created an image of the peasant strongly believing that he helps Giselle and saves her from the huge mistake. It was nice to watch the pas de quatre performed by Connie Vowles - Joseph Massarelli and Luiza Bertho - Dingkai Bai; I liked most the first couple as the second seemed to be less harmonius to me. Connie Vowles danced Zulme also in the second act. It was entertaining to watch wine stampers - four good looking boys performing a short dance - this evening they were Rafael Valdez, Fabio Rinieri, Koyo Yamamoto, Soshi Suzuki. Nina Tonoli was Myrtha and gave an impression of a truly unyielding leader ruling over the willis. Erica Horwood was Moyna. So the first evening almost couldn't be better! The next day I was attending the day performance that was filmed - so hopefully many of us will be able to watch it at some point. Here the main protagonists were Olga Smirnova and Jacopo Tissi and though their dancing was brilliant, they have still left the impression of two star performers dancing together and not that much of a young couple falling in love. I could have wished to see Olga more joyful while she still believed in her fiancee and Jacopo a bit less nobleman and a bit more absorbed by feelings. Here we had Giorgi Potskhishvili as Hilarion and he was very convincing both in his love and jealousy and Floor Eimers as Myrtha (beautiful lines, dancing and acting). Pas de quatre was almost impeccably danced by Yuanyan Zhang (she had some unstable moments on the scene) -Edo Wijnen and Naira Agvanean - Sho Yamada and again everybody was smiling watching the four wine stampers Sem Sjouke, Dingkai Bai, Koyo Yamamoto and Soshi Suzuki. Through all the performance there were "Bravo!" shouts and a lot of applauses, also at the first appearance of the main characters. Olga got a huge flower bouquet and in the end not only Ermanno Florio, the conductor came to the scene, but also Rachel Beaujean.

They have announced the cast for all October performances, and I'm looking forward to see Polina Semionova in a title role; I'm sure Weronica Frodyma will be fabulous, but I love Polina's dancing and artistry very much! And with Arte's streaming I'll be able to see two different casts!👏

I took yesterday a 1-day trip from Denmark to see the matinee performance - thanks to Ryanair there are suitable flights both in the morning and in the evening, though time in between is only just enough to come to the ROH and back to Stansted airport. Luckily everything went fine (to say the truth, the situation with possible strikes is what holds me back from visiting ROH more often) and even weather was great. I absolutely adore Steven MacRae with his strong scenic presence and individuality and he was superb in this role, both artistically and technically, no trace of the injury - those jumps! He was a great partner for Anna Rose O'Sullivan (whom I also like a lot), and she made a brulliant debut. It was also a great fun to watch the interaction between the actors. I was also impressed by Leo Dixon as Espada, and of course Yuhui Choe was a wonderful Mercedes. I liked both Kitri's friends (Sophie Allnatt and Sae Maeda) and their parthers - well, I can name everybody from the cast list, they all provided an excellent performance! Nikki B, and your daughter was also quite noticeable in the performance and I hope she'll have a great future in the ROH! Thank you, Rob S for lovely pictures that will remind me about this beautiful performance!

I'm currently sitting in the train coming back home from my first ballet evening this season, the duo performance of Balanchine's " Scotch symphony" and Bournonville's "La sylphide". Maybe I've just been missing the theater, but I liked tonight's performance a lot. It was the first time I saw " Scotch symphony", actually it had its premiere in Denmark only now in September. It's a relatively small piece created to the music of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy after Balanchine's visit to Edinburgh in 1952. The ballet starts with the corps de ballet (men dressed in traditional scottish clothes and ladies in beautiful white dresses) dancing something that resembled folk dances with a slight military touch (maybe to remind us about Edinburgh tattoos). Here we could see the female soloist Eukene Saques, and she was excellent, dancing joyfully and skillfully with a great musicality (a short videoclip can be found in her instagram, eukene8). She was assisted by two dancers, Afonso Coelho and Philip Duclos, both very good. Then a main female sylph-like soloist, appeared (RDB's principal Emma Riis-Kofoed), along with the partner (Sebastian Pico Haynes). Who was she? Was it a mist from the scottish loch, a mystical creature or maybe an artistic image of scottish woman? They say, this ballet doesn't have any content, that is, one should just watch it and admire the beautiful dance but I couldn't help wondering, who is this guy following the beautiful girl? He also weared the scottish clothes though in different colours. Maybe it was somebody from the highlands trying to get the mystical girl from the lowlands? The scotsmen surrounding the sylph were reluctant to let him have her - to begin with. But the love won over. Both Emma and Sebastian danced extremely well and looked fine with each other. The music, dance pattern and interpretation were superb! Then came " La sylphide" well known to many ballet fans. The main role was danced by the principal Wilma Giglio, James was danced by the principal Jon Axel Fransson, Gurn by Lazaro Corrales, Effy by Victoria Bell and Madge by Esther Lee Wilkinson. The main duo was dancing beautifully, especially Jon Axel Fransson, but Wilma Giglio didn't impress me much though I can't explain why exactly. I think it was more about her artistic abilities but probably I just remember Ida Praetorius in this role much too well. I liked Gurn (Lazaro Corrales) a lot - he's not tall, so Victoria Bell suited him finely, but he created a very good image of the man who knows what does he want (unlikely James) and how to get it. Madge was great, very convincing and mean. Wonderful evening and I'm looking forward to many other performances this season!

In my opinion it would be so much better if we speak here about the art and leave the political aspects outside. I'm sure that the great many of russian dancers don't support this war and are, moreover, against it as they only lost a lot with the beginning of the war (there are many russians perished as well, and the human lives is what matters most, but they also lost the collaboration with the european/american theaters, choreographers, etc .) There were cases in Russia when the authorities took a child away from the parent because of the antiwar drawing made by the kid, and there were arrests of the people wearing something blue and yellow (colours of the ucranian flag), not mentioning the imprisonment because of the real antiwar protests - you can't expect the artists being able to struggle against it. Sometimes they have no choice.

I was one of the lucky spectators in Bellevue theatre, conveniently located at the coast of Baltic sea close to Klampenborg railway station ( 20 min ride from central Copenhagen) to see "Le Jeune Homme et la Mort" last Saturday.It was my first "Le Jeune Homme et la Mort" ( actually they said, it was the premiere of this ballet in Denmark) and I absolutely loved it! Alban Lendorf is one of the few artists that captures public's attention from the first moment, even if he's just lying on the bed with a cigarette.I think, he's in a great form and I hope he'll continue to perform as a ballet dancer even if it will be only the short ballets.Every detail on the scene played a role, every movement had meaning. Was the date with a beautiful lady ( I don't want to say "girl" as Cassandra Trenary from ABT made her entrance indeed like a lady) just his dream, caused by some narcotical fumes? Did he expect a visit from his girlfriend who failed him? He was clearly in despair to start with, but the chasing game with a stranger somehow put his mind at peace, or at least showed him the only possible solution to the situation. Great dancing, great performance, and my only wish is to have it recorded!Of course, I would also loved to mention the wonderful dancing and artistic skills of Cassandra Trenary, Alban's partner. She was utmostly self confident and masterly led the young guy towards the End, reminding us all that playing with death is extremely dangerous.So I can only say: "More performances like this, please, Alban!" - by the way, there'll be a dance spectacle in november-december, "Dance, ballerina, dance!" with the performances in Copenhagen and other danish cities, with the participation of Holly Dorger, the solo dancer from RDB, Ask La Cour, former principal of the NYCB and Alban Lendorf (as Santa, no less)!

Well, to be honest, the tickets to Verdensballetten's shows aren't cheap, around 60 pounds, let's say and you still can't be sure if it rains or not; the ticket to this Gala concert I saw was 300 DKK, around 34 pounds, but then it was for a good cause and still a pleasure.

This year Verdensballeten's team have been really unlucky as it was the rainiest July in many years. On the 1st of August I've been to the open air gala concert "Dance for hope" in Mindeparken in Aarhus. Unfortunately it was raining non stop through the whole performance (only right in the end the sun came out and we were awarded by beautiful rainbow). Nevertheless many of the dancers decided to perform even under the bad weather conditions - especially many thanks to the british participants, they all were up the scene and maybe their performance wasn't on the usual top level as they should have danced quite carefully, but still they were superb in showing the beauty of the ballet to many spectators that came to see them. Actually it was only Xander Parish who didn't take part in this gala. I've recorded some of the performances but have to apologize as in the middle of the first number something happened with my camera and the sound almost went off, but if you would like to estimate, under what conditions the dancers had to perform, here it is: 1) Astrid Elbo (RDB), Reece Clarke (ROH), the excerpt from the white pdd from "The Swan lake": 2) Pdd "Cote a cote" (created to the poem of prince Henrik, late husband of our queen Margrethe), Anna Rose O'Sullivan, Steven McRae (both from ROH): 3) a very touching pdd "Les adieux", chor. Eric Gauthier , music Metallica (played by Niklas Walentin, the violinist), Iana Salenko and Marian Walter (both from Berlin): 4) Steven McRae "Czardas", music Vittorio Monti: Besides we saw "The dying swan" performed by Iana Salenko, the beautiful performance of danish jazz flamenco dancer Selene Munoz, opera and pop singers and monologue of Sofie Gråbøl, a famous danish actress. There was a great atmosphere at the concert and I'm very glad that I've been there (and watching Anna Rose O'Sullivan and Steven McRae made me willingly buy a ticket to see them performing "Don Quichote" together in October!

I'm sure you will love "Raymonda" though some twists of the plot and main characters are not quite traditional. I myself prefer to sit close to the scene and choose almost always the first places at the first tier (strangely enough, located at the row 2 as the first row is only in the center). But there you can't see the far corner of the scene. Actually I haven't been to Anna Frank's museum (it's on my list, but there always were enormous queues there), but the Rijksmuseum is absolutely worth of visiting, and you can buy a combo ticket to visit Rijksmuseum and the Modern art museum located nearby (they had some Banksy works when I was visiting). The canal tour is a must, especially if it's your first visit to Amsterdam. It's probably better to buy a special small card (similar to Oyster card) for travelling around, it can be used for 3 years, or Amsterdam card - depending on how many days you'll spend there. If it'll be several days, you can find some guided tours around Holland - I took once a trip to Delft, Hague and Rotterdam, and it was wonderful! I myself am looking forward to see " Giselle" in Amsterdam (and then "Bovary" in Berlin - there's quite convenient and not too expensive direct train between two cities). As to the hotel accomodation, there's a cheap and nice "Hortus" hotel in a walking distance from the Opera house and close to the tram stop and Waterlooplein underground station. But it's typical Amsterdam house, meaning narrow steep staircase.