Swan Lake Ballet Fairytale

On December 2017, I have decided to try a new experience! So, I have booked my ticket to watch my first Ballet live performance in Cairo Opera House. On the 12th of January 2018, I putted on my dress and high heels to watch the Swan Lake fairytale! 

The storyline is cliche with "they lived happily ever after" line and all the lovely endings! However, the performance itself was breathtaking with all the pirouettes and white Ballet dresses. First things first, Swan Lake was composed by Tchaikovsky between 1875 and 1876, premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet in 1877 in Moscow. To my surprise, history states that such a great performance was a failure despite its current global success!!! It is divided into acts, revolving around "Odette" which turned to Swan because of the evil curse by the owl.

For you who don't know the story, the curtains goes up so you can see the prince celebrating his birthday in a big royal celebration. Then his parents show their concern about this carefree life expressing their intention that he should tie the knot and choose a bride next day during the dancing party! But, the prince can't marry without love. So, his friends took him to the lake to cheer him up after the discussion. And at the lake they saw flying swans! Then, one of the swans turned to a beautiful girl. And she told the prince that she is Odette and the evil owl cursed her with her girl friends to become swans. 

So, in mornings they are swans and in the evenings they are girls again only around the enchanted lake. The only way to break this curse is through true love. Someone who never loved before should promise Odette that he will love her forever. When the evil owl appears, the prince volunteers to kill him. But Odette claimed that if he is killed before breaking the spell they will remain swans forever. So, the prince promised Odette to fall in love with her! 

Next day, the guests arrived to the palace to attend the dancing party. Six girls were introduced to the prince and the evil owl disguised as a human along with his daughter that he cursed to look like Odette were introduced to the prince too. So, the prince mistakenly chose the owl's daughter instead of Odette to be his wife. During the dance, Odette appeared as a vision to warn the prince that he is deceived. 

The prince didn't believe the vision, willing to marry the girl. However, the evil owl showed him the real Odette to prove that he didn't love her truly in the first place and he mistakenly took another girl. Odette knew the betrayal!! When the prince apologizes and then both of them are in true love again. The owl asked the prince to marry his daughter as promised! When the prince refused and agreed to die with Odette instead, the spell was broken for all of the other girls.

Although the performance was a real fairytale, I am willing to attend various Ballet performances later. But, at some point I was disconnected and couldn't connect the performance with the story above.