Izhevsk
Ballet
Opera House in Izhevsk
December 10, 2003
The opera house or theater is just off Pushkinskaya Street and my early arrival
allowed me to look at my recently purchased map. The city consists of five districts
and I was right, I do live on the eastern end of the city… in fact on the very last
street in the city, beyond which is only fields, hills, and trees.
I didn’t have to wait long before Kathryn, Alisa, Katya, Natalya, and Alisa’s mom
arrived. We had the director’s box and hence great seats for Shelkunchik (Щелкунчик),
the Nutcracker. The ballet itself was ok, but the music excellent, and the place
was sold out. Our tickets only cost 100 rubles a piece; in comparison Vavalon, the
night club costs 200 rubles.
The ballerinas and orchestra get paid very poorly and the people of Udmurtia and
Izhevsk supposedly have little interest in the fine arts, unlike in Moscow where
it is greatly respected (although it was sold out, it was nearly all school groups).
Most productions here are far from being sold out and many people from Izhevsk mock
the arts here as a very bad stage and theater. The building however has a nice set
up including three levels, a nice stage, pit, boxes on both sides, the stairs are
marble and the rest mostly concrete.
Alisa and Katya were very embarrassed because they were wearing dresses, while most
people weren’t. I was wearing a dress shirt, without a tie and was better dressed
than most, yet still others had full suits on.
I’m not a fan of the ballet, but felt I couldn’t pass up this opportunity given
that the Nutcracker was written by Udmurtia’s very own Tchaikovsky in 1892 (although
the ballet itself was choreographed by Lev Ivanov of St. Petersburg).
After the performance we went to a late dinner at Kama on the center square, across
from Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It was very fancy; we even had to ring a door bell
to get in. After checking our coats, we found our seats in the very well designed
and decorated restaurant, the walls were covered with pictures of Izhevsk from the
turn of the 20th century, from which Izhevsk looks like an entirely different city.
We were treated with free samples of wine due to a wine presentation in the restaurant.
This was the first formal meal I had in Russia and it was odd, because many items
on the menu I had actually heard of. I had French onion soup and chicken Kyiv; both
of which were excellent. We spend our time talking and little else; this was Russia,
but at the same time it was a nice break from “real-world Russia,” if only for a
brief moment. This is how I imagine much of Moscow and St. Petersburg, but those
are only two cities in the world’s largest country, Izhevsk I think is Russia to
most of the population.