Classical Odessa

Odessa, Ukraine, Monday, April 23, 2018, 11 AM

I'm here!   But getting here wasn't easy.

I got a bad cold and cough in Lviv, Ukraine which I treated by resting.  Not fun except for the great Netflix series "Money Heist" which entertained me as I lay up in my hotel room.  The rest of my course of  "treatment" was to "will it" to be over by Friday when I was scheduled to take the train to Odessa.  I sure didn't want to be annoying the 3 passengers sharing my compartment on the 11-hour overnight train.

As it turned out I was fit to travel right when I needed to be, but not a day sooner.
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The train left Lviv on Friday night at 10:12 PM.  I knew the first part of the trip would be noisy but, I found myself thinking this is ridiculous.  Even worse than I remembered.



I would have been really alarmed if I hadn't experienced this last year and wasn't sharing my compartment with 3 other passengers who didn't seem concerned.  Loud bangs and crashes on the undercarriage which sounded like they could break an axle or smash a wheel.  And the train bucking and swaying.  It seemed it could easily jump the rail. I found myself imagining the headline - "train derailed in Europe".

The train itself, however, was really nice and appeared to be quite new with even a decent
bathroom on board.  And of course, with plenty of room to spread out, trains can be much more comfortable than flying.

By 3AM things quieted down and I was finally able to get some sleep which I needed for my arrival when I had to immediately head over to the Opera ticket office to get tickets for the same day's evening performance of "La Boheme" and the following night's performance of "Sleeping Beauty".

After a too-long-to-tell-saga of getting my tickets, I staggered back to my hotel and collapsed in bed to get enough sleep to enjoy the night's performance.

Here's a slideshow of what I saw at the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theatre.





Indeed it was all worth enduring the effort to get here to experience Puccini's great music in such a beautiful concert hall.  They don't let you take pictures during performances at the Opera,  but they do at the Ballet which I did the next night.

With my new Canon pocket camera (a marvel in engineering technology! ) using its eye viewfinder I was able to take videos without disturbing my neighbors as I would have with the bright display screen of my phone. And so I took a lot of videos thanks to a favorite Blogger Harry Newton (http://www.technologyinvestor.com/) who recommended my new camera and urged me to keep it when I was experiencing doubts.






In Eastern Europe, each city's most beautiful building is its Opera and Ballet Theatre.  From what I've observed the popularity of classical music here is led by the Ballet, followed by Opera and lastly the Symphony.  Just the reverse order to that in the new world. Or at least so it appears to me. The crowd was bigger and the Ballet prices were twice as high as for the Opera, but still a bargain at only about $10 for my excellent seat in the orchestra.

I'm no expert on Ballet so I'll wait to hear from my friend Linda who studied ballet at Baltimore's renowned Peabody School of Music.  But it looked pretty impressive to me.

And I look forward to hearing from Pavlo in Lviv, Ukraine who recommended I go to the Opera here about my (unusual?) experience of the train ride.  Is it just me or do others find this train ride unusual? I don't recall experiencing such great tumultuous turmoil on train rides on other routes in Ukraine or was it because I was just trying to sleep?

Thursday and Friday I'll attend the Symphony.  Odessa has a popular conductor, Hobart Earle, about whom I've read great things and whom I'll get to see and report on if the muse so orders.

This morning I got an email from my friend Janie in Nova Scotia which I read just before writing this Blog post.  She recommended I go to a doctor and put off my trip to Odessa.  Obviously, I got this advice too late and (as she knows) probably wouldn't have followed it anyway.  But thanks!

This is my fifth year coming to Ukraine.  Hard to believe.  I didn't know if I'd post to my Blog this visit or if I will again after this post.  I don't want to wear out my welcome.

But then I got the email from Janie and my reply turned into this post.  So dear readers, please let me know if you're still interested in my wanderings here and I 'll be so guided.

For those not into classical music -- I saw this performance on the way back to my hotel.  The dancing and the spirit of the crowd were every bit as inspiring as those displayed in the Opera and Ballet Theatre!



If you'd like to see some of the great sights in this city founded by Catherine the Great and one of the four great cities of Imperial Russia please visit (or revisit) my Blog post from last year - The Grandeur of Odessa.

Hope you enjoyed this post and would be delighted to hear from you.
Thanks for reading!