Beware Macdoof

I went with Daniel and Danielle to see Bolshoi Theatre's production of Verdi's Macbeth. The cheap seats -- neudobny, or inconvenient ones -- are just 50 rubles if you show up an hour before the show. Unfortunately, the box office to the biggest theater in Russia is poorly organized. There's the window for pensioners and others entitled to free tickets, the window with a line of woman that's not moving at all, and one window with no cashier. Everyone, not just the foreigners, is wandering around trying to figure out where to buy tickets.

Daniel, who's gone here before, took the lead in approaching one ticket window after another until a cashier finally told him to just wait a few minutes and she'd have tickets ready. We milled around for a little while since it was long before 6:30. Then another woman wandered up to the window to wait. After a few minutes, there was a loud argument between her, the guard, and the cashier. The latter two both vehemently protected Daniel's right to be first in line. They kept telling her to get behind the molodoi chelovek. Nevermind us -- we got shoved to the end of the line. At any rate, thanks to Daniel's in with the cashier he/we got first crack at the discount seats.

On the far wall is a little model of the theater.

Because the Bolshoi is undergoing an enormous renovation, this show was actually in the New Bolshoi. This is in the hallway leading to the auditorium...

And here's inside the auditorium:

Isn't it fantastic? Don't you just expect to look over and see Madame Olenska scandalizing everyone?

But let's settle down and pay attention to the opera. Oh wait, we're not done with the ticket problem. Although we bought three tickets at once, one is in a separate section. These particular neudobny seats are so far to the right of the theater that you can only see 60% of the state, and the third ticket is in the farthest section. The usher wouldn't let us sit together even though there were plenty of seats. (She was actually pretty nice about it; later she yelled at a patron who had hauled the usher's chair in from the hall and set it up at the railing.)

So we take our respective seats and watch the first two acts, wherein there is a whirlwind of predictions from about 50 witches who spend a lot of their time swinging their hair at Macbeth.

At intermission we stop by the refreshment room, where tea, salmon sandwiches, salami, champagne, and caviar are available for purchase.

You serve yourself hot water for tea from a giant samovar in the middle of the room.

And then after intermission we return to find in our seats two elderly ladies holding hand written tickets with our seat numbers. I'm just waiting for the strict usher to return when they figure out that they are in the wrong. Once everything gets sorted out, we can pay attention again to the play.

Highlights:

- the Russian subtitles revealed the spelling Макдуф, which is pronounced "Macdoof" in Russian. This adds an entirely new, unheroic dimension to his character.

- I know an opera is not a play, but I wanted to see some action. I mean, most of the characters die violently. The murders and battles were disappointingly abstract. Duncan was murdered with a slashing of black fabric, Banquo just ran off stage, and Macbeth staggered off stage. Eh.

- In general, there were a lot of abstract elements, some of which made no sense to me. Random extras were wearing red gloves. Fleance, who was approximately seven years old, showed up at the banquet with the ghost of Banquo. The strangest part was the use of these long poles with cotton or tin foil on the end of them. Picture a series of giant q-tips: that was Dunsinane Wood. The tin foil ones were alternately apparitions, Dunsinane Wood, and Banquo's descendants.

- I'm happy to report that no one actually answered his/her phone during the opera, which I fully expected.