The Ballet

View of ceiling chandelier, lighting and mural by Dufy from the 4th level balcony.

Gold plated carving defining each level's balcony.

View of the ceiling from the orchestra pit seating.

My host mother invited me to the ballet at the Opera House last Wednesday, because her sister used to be an etoile (aka the ballet equivalent of an oscar nominated actor) and now she gets free tickets to any ballet opening. She was not going to be able to make it to Paris so she left 2 tickets at the box office to pick up for my host mother.

On Wednesday I went online to double check the time and to read a little about the ballet. I saw that online the calendar had the date as Thursday, not Wednesday. I called my host mother to confirm, and after she had spoked with the ticket office at the Opera House, she said that it indeed was Thursday.

Come Thursday, we go to the Opera House to find out that indeed the tickets were for Wednesday because that was a private showing night for VIP guests (such as my host mother's sister) and critics before being opened to the public. We didn't have any seats and it was a sold out show! However Mme. talked to the ticket office man and he got us 4th balcony (the highest up) tickets.
I was just excited that I would get to go so the seating didn't bother me. However, we saw that 4 seats in the ochestra pit seating on the ground floor were not occupied so we took full advatange and went down. Therefore, what started off as a very confusing and frustrating experience ended with 5th row seats (better than the VIP private seating behing the orchestra level seating) to see the ballet Oneguine with music by Tchaikovski!

All's well that ends well :)