The Merry Rainbow

Last night I didn't sleep very well. I was worried about getting up very early this morning to try get the tickets to see Ennio Morricone (composer of many unforgettable movies, such as The Untouchables, Cinema Paradiso, Once Upon a Time in America, Malena, among many others) in Concert next Thursday. It was the second time I tried, the first resulted in a total fiasco when they had the entrances over the internet and only a few lucky ones were even able to access the page. This time it was much more to the early birds sake for what before it was on line now it's in line! So I left home, not without my breakfast (as my granny always says, "An empty bag never stays up") and took with me only a pocket book. When I arrived there to see that huge line, my desire then was to run on the contrary direction. I didn't know where it finished I saw people running in many directions. I didn't know which way to go. Then I asked a guy who, by the way, had his mouth wide open while standing there, petrified through that immense crowd, where was the end of the line. He cracked in a nervous laughter and said, "I don't know. I think it is somewhere over there!" Very, very far, far away. But I had an unbreakable faith. I picketed the book from my pocket. There lies the author's biography and it was from the Irish Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, showing that it pays off to be resilient. I also rely on my partial Celtic heritage. "Luck is on my way!" I mentally envisioned the tickets already in my hands, touching it as a big prize. And believe me, I made it. I actually made it through those more than three hours waiting, standing on the sun, blisters on my shoes, suffering all the blues and through an evermore angry crowd and I have got the ticket now over my hands like a priceless trophy!! A woman who belonged to the organization staff saw my big smile, and told me, "And there it was worth it!" So much for my credibilities: Today is the day before (or after if you see on this year's calendar) of San Paddy's day, the beginning of the Holy week, it is the Palm Sunday. And I feel thrice blessed!

But my luck started yesterday (thanks, Saint Pat!:) I got the tickets that I so wished for the performance by the Santiago Ballet, The Merry Widow, which was first presented in 1975, by the Australian Ballet. With the mis-en-scene of English choreographer Ronald Hynd filled with ballroom dances from waltz to fox-trot, mazurkas and czars, this Ballet is a bombshell with a revolution of colourful designs and costumes, with scenery of a gigantic proportion, and a super production worth watching. If I were to compare it with a musical as this Ballet's twin I would name "Beauty and the Beast" with an unforgettable production which I had the privilege to watch (and twice) in a fancy theatre in LA.

So I watched the Ballet of Santiago from very far away, from the seat I had I could only watch a head in front of me. So I went upstairs and proved that the zoom from my camera still worked, though fairly. You can get a glimpse of what it was this last night event on the pictures below. For a picture is worth a thousand words.
Or you can always watch it on "Your Tube" by the same company and production:

The Ballet is about a widow, and she is always merry, not married (well, married she was, at least once) and guess what? Her name is Ana (like me:) All start with a married woman flirting with a man.

Her husband, the Baron, is too worried about Ana's inheritance (unlike me her husband actually left her a fortune) to think about his wife's infidelities. So he throws her a big party with many of the Royal members, so that she may choose one to marry, hence keeping her heritage in its original place.





In the meantime, there is already a man that Ana has an eye on, Danilo, with a love that flourished yet in their youth. But Danilo refuses to dance with her. He wants her to choose another partner. When they were both left alone, then it was she who refuses his attempt to get closer. To make matters wor$ the unfaithfully wife invites his lover to marry the widow, but also to a idyll.



Meanwhile, Danilo finds out that the widow is planning to invite the dancer ladies from Maxim's, and see that as a sign of reconciliation. But things get strangely complicated when Camille, the lover (not Ana's but the Baron's wife's lover), decides to marry Ana. And to save the reputation and not to hurt the Baron's feelings, Ana changes places with his wife, and therefore gets busted with Camille, which was not in Danilo's plan. He in the other hand get furious and goes to Maxim's to forget his misfortunes.




Now is the Baron's turn to ask Ana to marry him. "I will divorce my wife, she's been cheating on me!" (No kidding?) "I am a respectable wife, a lady with honour" those are the words left to the Baron by his beloved wife, therefore saving their marriage. Anyways, Ana had refused him already, saying that she would loose her inheritance if she decides to marry anyone. And she means, ANYONE! And then she tells the same to Danilo, who is smart enough to say, "hey, I am not anyone, I am your only one. And no worries over your tunes, I will take good care of your fortune." Then they get married instead. And all ends well. The scenes are in Paris, always, Paris, and the last act shows a Maxim and the Parisian bohemian life in all its splendour and that took me back to the Bateau Mouche where I once took a photo with the Eiffel Tower as a dazzling vision. And the last scene with the grand waltz, I got transported through time and space, in a dream's realm, as the gold in the end of a merry rainbow. Fascinating!