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Ondine: 13/05/2005
Reviews

From: Another
Category: Music
Date: 16 May 2005

Review

A trip to Ondine at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on a Friday evening is a classic experience. Champagne and smoked salmon sandwiches, soft fabrics on delicately scented skin, the clip of stilettos and the sight of long, elegant bare legs stretching upwards forever. It's a girlie affair. Not for the clumsy.

On the other hand the Royal Opera House is not the exclusive thing it is perceived as being, and frankly it could do with a few more casual attendees. Regular tickets can be bought for £15, and Travelex is currently sponsoring a season so that you can get tickets for £10 on Monday evenings. For one of the best opera houses in the world, that's not bad, and in the Royal Opera House you get a good view from everywhere.

Ondine is the love story between a water sprite and a land-borne Prince which, of course, ends in tragedy. It was a beautiful performance and some moments, admittedly, were breath-taking. Certain classic tricks reminded me of a trip as a young child to see Peter Pan - at a moment of great romantic tragedy, our hero, Prince Palemon suffers in the foreground while Ondine appears to float 7 feet high behind a veil of silk towards the back of the stage. But I was never quite transported into the delicious, watery world that I'd hoped, from my memory of reading the Water Babies when little, to sense. No doubt, others were.

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