My 10-year-old son Will got all dressed up in a suit and tie yesterday when we took a tour backstage at
American Ballet Theater where our good friend Kathleen Moore Tovar was once a principle ballerina.
And there on the stage of
the Metropolitan Opera before the red and gold theater spread out before him like a jewel box, my young dancer got to take a bow. He also got to do a few leaps across the stage between rehearsals.
It was a magical day and one that I hope will stay with Will, who has taken ballet since he was 6, if he ever does become a dancer. The costumes, the scenery, the grace of those beautiful dancers, were all very dream-like even for a novice like me who barely knows a jeteé from a jamboree.
My young dancer also got to do a few leaps on the stage when the performers had left the stage. The costumes, the scenery, the beautiful dancers, were all part of the incredible tour that our friend Kathleen Moore Tovar, a former prima ballerina at ABT, gave us on Monday.
Will’s eyes turned wide when Kathleen took us backstage and showed us the huge elevator that is as big as our garage used to transports scenery. We tiptoed backstage to see the company finishing the first act of “Sylvia,” and costumed dancers began leaving the stage, many of them greeting Kathleen, who has been retired for 10 years but who still keeps in touch with members of the company.
There was a beautiful old-fashioned sailing ship at the back of the stage with blue striped sails and Becket and Will both got to sit inside it. One of the backstage people told us that it moves by human power. They simply push and pull it across the stage. Both boys were thrilled at this magical boat even if it doesn’t move.
Backstage we peered at a table of props including two treasure boxes seemingly brimming over with jewels. A little further away was a fake deer hanging upside down as if the hunter Orion who falls in love with Sylvia in the ballet had just shot it.
Our group traipsed past boxes of costumes for Swan Lake marked with Japanese writing and a huge cart full of plastic bags for the dancer’s slippers. Then we tiptoed through the area where the principal’s dressing rooms are and where Kathleen once had her dressing room (now a massage room). The halls are covered in red velvet and the principal’s dressing room we saw had a chaise lounge and a lighted mirror just as you would imagine a star dressing room should look.
I loved seeing the rows of sumptuous costumes of princes and royalty covered with jewels and brocade and a knight’s costume of some kind with metallic sleeves. Will and Becket popped into the men’s dressing room. Then we peeked into the make-up room where there were wigs and horns along a shelf and a make-up artist was getting a swirl of blue make-up applied to his face. Kathleen explained that ballet dancers generally apply their own make-up unless they are playing a role requiring difficult, dramatic make-up.
Next on the tour, we went down to the bottom floor where the studios were and Will remarked that the studio had ballet bars just like his. (He’s just 10 after all). We had a snack in the canteen and watched ballet dancers coming in and out in full make-up. Kathleen still knows many of the dancers and she’s friendly to everyone. She always introduced Will as a ballet dancer when we met someone.
In the basement, we happened upon a man coming from the set design section of the basement whose overalls and tees-shirt were covered in gray muck, who invited us to go through the section where they were making scenery for the operas.
The four of us went in and there were some men working on what locked like piles of rocks and rubble that on closer inspection was made of plaster. The men told us that they were working on scenery of an earthquake for “Attila the Hun,” and that it was designed by the same architect who did the Olympic “bird’s nest” in Beijing. There was also a faux brick stadium for “Carmen,” and we took pictures of Will and Kathleen’s son, Becket, on the stairs.
We went upstairs to watch the tech rehearsal and slipped into a soundproof booth at the back and center of the theater where we had a wonderful view of the stage and could chat away with anyone hearing us. We could hear all the techies talking during the rehearsal. “Cue the lightning,” one would say. “Eros is coming in at the left,” another would say.
All those directions gave us a sense of the odd plot of the show, which has something to do with Sylvia, a follower of Diana, shooting the shepherd, Aminta to protect the God of love, Eros. A hunter named Orion kidnaps Aminta and she somehow escapes and at the end Diana shoots Orion and is ready to shoot Aminta too when Eros shows her a vision of her own young love and they all live happily ever after. A few ballet dancers told us it wasn’t their favorite ballet because there’s not much story or opportunity to act.
At any rate, the production was sumptuous with beautiful gold clouds in the background of a Roman temple. Even the gold curtain with its many loops was fabulous. The music by Leo Delibes is beautiful and it made a huge difference having an orchestra perform the music. (We got to peek in at the orchestra pit during a break).
As Will and I and Becket watched, Kathleen critiqued the performance more for her benefit than ours. ‘Oops, watch out,” she’d say to the dancers, or “That was a nice move.” Or she’d say, “That was kind of awkward.” But mostly she was full of praise for the dancers, pointing out how talented the principle dancers were.
We sat for a few minutes in the audience and then slipped behind stage again as they finished their rehearsal to the applause of some invited guests.
Will has always loved dancing even before he ever took ballet. But for the past two years, there’s been plenty of competition with ballet: school plays, basketball and baseball. He sometimes gets tired of the constant practice and demands of ballet and he gets more pats on the back for the baseball. I worry about what happens when he goes to middle school and ballet is no longer acceptable.
So it’s nice to have one day that shows him ballet at its shining best. If he does happen to set his sights on being a dancer, he can aim for the stars and try to get back on that stage again when there’s an audience sitting in that beautiful theater.
I’ll be there applauding whatever he chooses and even he becomes a dog catcher, at least now we can say he once stood on the stage at the Metropolitan Opera.
