I went to Wuthering Heights ballet at the Alhambra theatre in Bradford; it was a beautiful building and very interesting to look at. Mainly all positives for this ballet. I could see from where I was sat, that most of the place was busy, however there were a few empty seats behind us. Although most of the audience were older people there were definitely more younger people than I expected at a ballet performance.
Before watching this ballet, I had never read or seen Wuthering Heights, so I didn’t know the story. So I was a bit sceptical of watching Wuthering Heights purely because sometimes ballets can be a bit boring because you don’t always get to understand the story well. With this ballet I found it very easy and enjoyable. The dancing and the acting of the dancers made it easy to follow the story.
The costumes were well thought out and looked very effective. They helped describe the scene well and also helped distinguish people. I think that costumes play an important role in ballet, as sometimes the stories can be hard to follow because you have to piece it together through the dancing.
The scenery and props were also very good, although not many, they were effective. I especially liked the part at the end when Heathcliff had snow falling on him, it was very dramatic. One thing that wasn’t so good was that the audience clapped at inappropriate times, and this sometimes ruined the mood. But then I suppose that like me, people aren’t always sure what to do in the ballet performances and it can sometimes be unclear when you actually are supposed to clap and when you're not.
The music was brilliant and it was a perfect match with the scenes, (when something was more dramatic, the music was dramatic and when the music needed to be softer it was.) It was a shame however that the orchestra could not be seen, because I think they play a very important part in the ballet and it would have been nice to actually have seen them.
The dancing made me feel very happy and excited. But at the sad bits I actually felt very sad. The dancers were perfectly in time with each other and the music and their skill was excellent. There was a huge amount of difficult and impressive lifts that literally made me gasp at the difficulty, but they carried it out with grace and ease. As a ballet dancer myself it makes me wish I could dance like that. Maybe one day! It will certainly make me try a bit harder in my ballet lessons to help with pointing my feet and stretching my arms all of the time and as much as I can.
This was definitely the best ballet I’ve ever seen and the dramatic effect was tremendous. My favourite part of this ballet was that it wasn’t all serious and there were funny scenes at times in which I and other members of the audience laughed; this made the ballet much more enjoyable and gave it a different feel to other ballets.
A woman sat next to my mum, was even in tears from being so overwhelmed by the tragic and dramatic story of Wuthering heights. I think this says everything about the amazing performance that was put on!
I would definitely recommend it to my friends - and I would like to go myself to see it again!
Katherine Bowen, age 16.
Katy saw Wuthering Heights performed by Northern Ballet Theatre at Alhambra Theatre in Bradford on 24th October 2009.
credits: Georgina May as Cathy.
