We couldn’t justifiably come to this amazing city of St Petersburg and not try to see a real Russian ballet so we found some cheap tickets at the Conservatory theatre across the road from the famous Marinsky theatre which had an opera on for about 6x the price of the ballet. This is what the kids thought:

We went to the live ballet tonight. Everything was live. The orchestra was live, they did some pretty amazing things. We thought the show was finished two times because mummy only downloaded two acts of the story, so we started to walk out to the toilets after act 2, and then again after act 3. I liked to dance in the breaks. I want to go to a ballet school like those dancers did.
The girl that was the main dancer and swan was as pretty as a princess, just as beautiful as our aunty Sally on her wedding day.

I really loved the dancing and the story was about a prince’s birthday and the queen told him that she would get him married off but he didn’t want to so he went to the forest at night time. He met some girls that were beautiful swans during the daytime. The most beautiful swan was the one he fell in love with. At the end the girl didn’t want to get married because she would only exist at night time so she threw his flowers away. He went to visit the swans again and got to see her at night as a real girl and that was the end – i loved the story and the dancing and I couldn’t stop dancing in the breaks. I was thinking that I want to join a ballet school so I can be in a story like that.
Kalika

We went to the ballet – the boys did work on their six packs and the girls were pretty.
The prince didn’t want to get married but his mum wanted him to get married. Lots of girls were in white dresses and he was swinging them around to check them out but he said ‘no – i dont want to marry any’. The girl that he loves is under a sorcerer’s spell and she was a swan. They danced very well on the stage on their tippy toes.
Emilio

We went to see see the ‘Swan Lake’ ballet – on my uncle George’s birthday. The story was about a young prince who had just turned 21 and had a big celebration for his birthday. His mum gave him a crossbow for a present, like a bow and arrow. His mum told him it was time she found him a girl to marry but he didn’t like the sound of that. So he ran out into forest and saw a beautiful girl who was a swan in the daytime. I loved how you had to know the story to follow it very well because there was no speaking. I want to do more ballet when I get home. I loved the celebration of the prince’s 21st most of all.
Yas

I really liked the ballet and was fascinated how the boys could do such amazing things and could lift the girls even higher than themselves. I really liked the story and all the acts and found them a bit weird by the things that they do – because the dancing tells the story. I like the last act of the story best because it was a good ending and good dances. One thing that I found funny is that we thought it had finished but then there were some more acts – baba thought it was three acts but there were actually four. We saw it all though – and they gave the lead girl flowers at the end.
Tobes

I liked the white dresses on the ballerinas and all of the ballerinas were pretty. I Liked the black tutu as well. My favourite part was when the swans were in the forest and I liked the blue dresses as well – that was at the prince’s party. It was a late night for us and on the way home I was tired and fell asleep in baba’s arms and he carried me all the way home on the walking and the train – it took nearly an hour.
Zoi