The Ballet - La Fille mal gardée

I'd booked these tickets about 7 weeks ago. But certain things had come up, that we hadn't been banking on! We deliberated as to whether or not we would actually attend the performance of La Fille mal gardée by the Birmingham Royal Ballet (I'd deliberated over this very thought whilst I purchased the tickets!). We were both shattered, and Amanda didn't know how she would feel later in the day after the pre op meeting. Anyway, we decided to hit the M40 at 6pm for what was to be my very first ballet experience. On arriving at the Hippodrome, we headed to our seats..... on noticing two ladies in our seats, I checked the ticket numbers again, no these were our seats alright, here we go! The performance was about to start, the usher checked our tickets and the 2 elderly ladies tickets. Whilst this went on we sat ourselves in the row behind a couple of seats further to the left. The manager told me he would come and see me during the first interval, as it looked like there may be a problem with the tickets.
The curtain lifed and the the lead man, with his spray on yellow pants demonstrated that he was quite a mover, and that any other job would in no way have managed to show off his spring loaded ability. What I wasn't impressed with, was the fact, each time he turned his back to the us, he appeared to be naked from the waste down. His yellow arse (if you're into male ballet dancer's arses, which I'm not, though I was suitable impressed!) powered into springbok like leaps, twists and turns, all the while he smiled, content in the fact that every person in the audience, even the deeply heterosexual males, could not take their eyes off his power laden, yellow butt cheeks. It was a fairly disturbing experience. Once I'd accepted my own arse could never look so good, I moved on to enjoying the performance. It was great to see Amanda smile and lose herself for a while. During the first interval, I shot off to find the manager, I didn't want to cause Amanda any further undue stress. I headed to the desk where I enquired about the ticket problem, basically how two pairs of identical tickets had been printed by the Hippodrome for the same show? I was concerned I'd purchased fakes, but thank heavens that was not the case. Instead I'd purchased stolen tickets..... Brilliant! He asked if I'd purchased them from ebay, 'yes' I replied, 'and I paid the same price as if I'd purchased them directly from the Hippodrome, and now I'm going to be made pay another £80 on top of the original £80'. I pointed was quick to point out, had I known I was handling stolen goods, would I really have enquired as to why someone else was sitting comfortably in our seats etc. etc. The manager was brilliant, printing off two tickets for the reserved house seats. When I checked them, another couple had already taken advantage of the fact that they were still empty at the beginning of the performance, and were already sitting in them (they were probably the ticket thieves!), but we didn't have the heart to shift them, so sat back in our original position! Stolen tickets, unbelievable eh?!
Amanda thoroughly enjoyed the performance, the live orchestral music, and the the silent performance of the dancers was just what she needed. She loved it in fact. I thoroughly enjoyed it too, and would attend again, though next time, rather than getting duped, and paying for stolen tickets, I think I'd consider cutting out the middle man and stealing them myself. This way I'd know what to expect on arrival.
As we lay in bed last night, I asked Amanda what you call a chap who performs ballet, she reckoned he must still be a ballerina. 'A ballerina!', I exclaimed, 'That's one of the most female words in the dictionary, he can't be called a ballerina, surely?'. I decided on a 'Ballaraja'.... it sounded masculine.
Having just Googled it, I can now inform any cultural heathens out there, that the chap with the yellow spray tanned arse was a balerino, or a danseur....... or of course, a Ballaraja!