What a wonderful evening

The Baltic Sea Pilot suggests looking out for the ruins of St Birgitta’s Convent as you approach Pirata harbour, Tallinn's yacht harbour.  The distinctive gable end is visible for miles out to sea.  With time to kill I decided to visit the ruined convent this morning and what a stroke of luck that was.  The convent, to my annoyance, was closed, but for a reason.  The Birgitta Festival was on and tonight saw the final performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty.  I went along in the hope of picking up a ticket and my prayers were answered as I arrived.  A woman pushed in front of me in the queue trying to return an unwanted ticket.  I snapped it up for 30 euro and made my way into the splendid ruins of the convent. 

The ballet was stunning.  Performed by the relatively recently formed Kremlin Ballet of Moscow it had some spectacular principal dancers.  The set was simple but superb (Savonlinna you could learn a thing or two) and the overall production impressive and exciting.  BUT (there’s always a ‘but’ isn’t there) one thing spoiled it.  The music was pre-recorded, there was no live orchestra.  What’s more it was recorded by the Tallinn Philharmonia Orchestra. The music was pumped out at deafening volume from two gigantic speakers.  Sadly it was not a good recording, far from it.  It lacked sublety, light and shade, and it was too damn loud the entire evening.  In fact Tchaikovsky’s beautiful music was murdered at times. The few discordant first notes of the score had people covering  their ears and it didn’t get any better.  The Tallinn Philharmonia is not one of the world’s leading orchestras, that was very clear, but they are located just five miles up the road from the convent so why on earth weren’t they there?  This is Tallinn’s premier annual festival of arts!

Nonetheless it was a spectacular evening and a splendid way to end my visit to Tallinn.  I wish my wife could have been there.  She’d have loved it.