Toronto

I spent a week in Toronto visiting Ma and checked out some new things.

On Sunday, we joined a few of my Iroquois friends at Woodbine racetrack, thanks to Lisa who works for the racing association. She got us in to the press box and the Steward's room, where they check videos of each race before calling the results official. The main race of the day was the Pattison International, featuring horses from all over the world. The day was cold but clear and there was a lively crowd. Unfortunately we did not win on any of our bets. 

We had dinner on Monday night with the Yangs and Huangs and they mentioned there was a new open air mall in Don Mills so we went to check it out on Tuesday. It's kind of strange to have this type of mall in a place with cold winters. Unlike most of the ones in California, this one had mostly driveable streets. The stores lean more upscale, with lots of eating places, movie theatres and a public square. They are building an apartment building next door. We had lunch at Fabbrica, an Italian restaurant run by celebrity chef Mark McEwan. The food was really good and Ma particularly enjoyed the heirloom tomatoes that came with the buffalo mozzarella. The almond cake was also particularly good, small, a little crispy on the outside and not too sweet. McEwan also has a high end grocery store in the mall (like a smaller Gelsons or Whole Foods). 

On Wednesday, we went to Roy Thompson Hall to hear the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Beforehand, we had dinner at Luckee, another restaurant by a celebrity chef, Susur Lee. The restaurant is in the Soho Metropolitan Hotel and has a casual but striking decor, with cafe type tables and chairs in a modern Asian inspired setting. Fang Fang joined us and we tried three of the dim sum dishes and three larger plates. While the dim sum items were incredibly beautiful, the flavours were good but not exceptional. For example the savoury fried sticky rice was shaped like a golden pair with a small piece of dried fruit as a stem. The main dishes, however, were spectacular. The 'char sui' was sous vide beef cooked for two or three days and so tender it almost literally melted in your mouth, with an intense rich flavour. The cod was flaky and perfectly cooked with a delicious sauce. The mi fun with crab had a lot of good sizes chunks of crab. On our way from the restaurant to the hall, we ran into a happy crowd of baseball fans after the Jays saved their series with the Royals by winning a game (although they ended up losing the series). The symphony hall was quite nice and we enjoyed the program, although the cheap seats we had did not have very balanced sound. 

On Thursday, we went to check out the Pompeii exhibit at ROM. But first, we met up with Cynthia and Lynda from the Italy trip! We had a lovely lunch at the cafe in the Gardiner Museum. It was fun to see the Pompeii exhibit laid out a little differently and with the context of having been to Pompeii. We also stopped in to see a small exhibit of export art from China, suggested to us by Cynthia. It was quite interesting to see the Western influence on the Asian style art. They had some paintings done on pith paper which puffs up when wet, so it gave the pictures a slightly three dimensional effect. 

Mariinsky, traditional and modern

I had the opportunity to see the same company twice within a couple of weeks, and it made for an interesting comparison. The Mariinsky performed in Orange County at Segerstrom Hall in Raymonda in late September and then came to LA (after a detour to Berkeley) for Ratmansky's 2002 version of Cinderella. I didn't realize it at the time but it allowed for an interesting comparison of this premier company in two very different pieces.

Raymonda is a classic although not much performed in its entirety in America.  There is a women's variation that is beautiful and famous and often being performed on its own. An over simplified synopsis of the story is that Raymonda is pursued by a foreign prince while her true love is at sea. The foreign prince is clearly portrayed as Arabic, sinister and overly dramatic. I find the Russian companies to be not ones for much facial expression. When applied to this particular ballet, it made the story-telling a little weird, because the dancer portraying the evil prince is emoting mightily by waving his arms around rather dramatically and trying to drag Raymonda to dance with him. Meanwhile, Raymonda is standing around like a teenage girl going, "whatever". No one in her entourage expresses much alarm at this sinister stranger popping up constantly.

One thing this ballet did have going for it is that the Russian corps are the best in the world. They are completely cohesive with strong technique and exceptionally crisp movement qualities. Much of the corps work here is in the form of character dances and I've never enjoyed them as much as I did here, or have I seen them performed so well. The dancer in the role of Raymonda was beautiful, with a light floaty controlled quality and she did the famous variation gorgeously with those famous Russian arms. I must add that Segerstrom is a terrible place to see dance. It's many oddly placed tiers and horizontal layout means that almost all of the seats are quite far from the stage, even at high price points.

When the company came to LA, they brought Ratmansky's early version of Cinderella. This was a different version than the one he created for the Australian Ballet, and which was recently seen in rehearsal during World Ballet Day 2015. They also brought Diana Vishneva, who is already a legendary ballerina. The staging was very modern with minimal sets (although strangely two columns in the middle of the stage) and simple costumes (the Prince wearing pants does come across as more dignified than the typical tights, although one does miss the flash of the traditional tunic). The overall story is the one we all know however the way he handled the famous shoe incident made the whole thing feel kind of pointless (ha, at first I wrote 'pointeless' by accident!) because the shoe is not represented by her putting on pointe shoes during the transformation but by sparkly pumps that she is never seen to wear. The fairy godmother is dressed as a tramp and never transforms into a glamorous version of herself. The season fairies are not distinguished in any way by their dancing (their costumes are colored appropriately). There is no real ball dance for the corps, which is a huge waste of talent! The clock music sequence is danced as a solo by Cinderella, again a waste of a beautiful corps scene.

But luckily we had Vishneva. Her dancing is so fluid and natural. She was beautifully partnered by Konstantin Zverev and their pas de deux were the highlight of the evening. And in the end, the columns fly away and we do get a chance to see the two of them dance unencumbered.