Sometimes you are just glad that you made the effort with something unknown.
The Royal Ballet's Dances at a Gathering proved to be a pared down and joyous Jerome Robbins journey into Chopin, with a bare stage allowing the dancers to show their skill and their personalities
Stars Marianela Nuñez, Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell were real standouts and after an hour of watching them literally open mouthed We then had the fortune to sit through a brand new ballet, Cathy Marston's The Cellist.
Being " back" at the Royal Opera House was always going to be a moving experience for me but I am so glad I was able to see something of so much depth and quality
The ballet centres around the aclaimed Cellist Jacqueline Du Prè and through a series of set pieces we see how Jacqueline fell in love with the instrument which catapulted her to stardom.
The cello is played with sublime skill by Marcelino Sambè who initially and magically becomes the instrument she obviously bonded with as a girl.
The two have a love affair on stage which is incredibly moving to watch and the humans in her life, her parents, sister and husband Daniel Barenboim sort of play a supporting role as multiple sclerosis starts to limit her abilities to perform.
I have never been so moved at the end of a ballet as I was at the end of The Cellist
Unable to move on her own, we see the dying DuPré positioned around the stage by a series of grey figures as she says her goodbyes to her loved ones and as she melts into inactivity into an armchair her cello spins , almost out of control across the stage, playing frantically.
Lauren Cuthbertson literally broke my heart in the lead role.
