THE BOLSHOI BALLET AT BATTERSEA

Posted by Admin on 7 April 2009, 12:00 am

The curtains part, the group ethereal
in white, in moonlight bathed, responds
to Chopin’s dreamy prelude – breaks
the posed Victorian vignette –
and once again I’m taken back
to Exeter in ’forty-five
where lissom Sylphides seemed,
quite weightlessly, to float
and glide, providing such a scene
of beauty that my war-frayed nerves
relaxed and left me close to tears.
It was an Anglo-Polish troupe
which danced that night but, tented now,
the Bolshoi’s best display their art
with sensitivity and skill
commensurate with those seen long
ago; and I, at home, rejoice
to find the magic still undimmed.