A trip to the ballet

Last Monday night, my class and I went to see the ballet Giselle at the Vienna Opera. The choreography was stunning. The athleticism and grace of not only the leads, but of the supporting dancers as well, was enough to keep me awake during a snoozer of a story and banal music. The one compelling moment was when Giselle goes mad. The dancer playing Giselle, whose name I never learned, proved herself an able actress. Unfortunately, the entire second half consisted of the following dialogue acted out in pantomime:

"I'm the queen of the dead. I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead."
Chorus: "She's dead. Oh yeah. Dead. Dead. And we're dead, too."
"I'm DEEEEEAAAAAD!"
"She's dead and she's a queen."
"I'm dead and I'm a queen."
Applause

Prince: "My lover's dead and I miss her."
Giselle: "I'm dead and I miss you, too."
"Hey, I still wanna be together."
"Me, too. I'll ask the queen."
Queen: "Nope."
Applause

Prince: "I wanna be together."
Giselle: "I wanna be together."
"We wanna be together. We wanna be together. Hey, let's ask the queen."
Queen: "Nope."
Applause

Dead maiden: "They wanna be together."
Dead maiden #2: "They wanna be together."
Applause

"We wanna be together. We wanna be together. Hey, let's ask the queen."
Queen: "Nope."
Applause

"Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. We wanna be together. Goodbye."
Applause

That took about an hour.

We were in the standing section which has velvet covered rails that you can lean against during the performance. Our usher must have been assigned to the cheap section (3.50 euro for the show) because of his lack of understanding of the concept of customer service. He forced us to take all of our coats and bags to the coat check, ferreting out hidden bags. He made us mark our places with scarves, but NOT ON THE TOP RAIL, obsessively removing items from the top rail throughout the night. A jacket had been left on a middle rail and he harassed someone in a completely different row about it so much that the man, after telling the usher three times that it wasn't his and he didn't know who owned it, stormed out mid-performance. The usher watched that jacket after the performance, waiting for the owner to return.