Best relative seating for watching a ballet?
My boyfriend and I would like to see the Boston Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker and are searching for tickets. Unfortunately, we can only afford the most inexpensive tickets. That leaves us with some not-so-great seating, but I was curious if any frequent theater-goers here could say which area of seating, relatively, would be better.
The seating chart for the Boston Ballet can be downloaded here
The two best options we were given were at the veeerry back of the Mezzanine area (row N in the left-hand corner), or in the Orchestra Left section, row E.
Neither of them are great seats, we know, but for the price, which would give us a better theater experience?
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10 Answers
I think if you can get the center of Row N, that you would enjoy the full view of the stage.
@marinelife That would be nice, unfortunately it seems the only available seats in that row are in the very corners, as far from the center as you can get. :/ I wonder if we’d still be able to have a good view from there…?
I would go for the upper Mezzanine seating.
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I’d take the mezzanine too, out of those choices. You’ll still get a good panoramic view of the ensemble movement and less of an extreme angle.
Take opera glasses (small binoculars) if you have them.
Get as center as possible to see the choreography perspective and as low as you can afford, although I prefer mezzanine to orchestra seats Once I sat so high and so steep that the background for the dancers was the floor of the stage, NOT the sets. I don’t recommend that. And if you want to see faces or costume details, take binoculars. You won’t be the only ones who don’t have ‘opera glasses.’ Enjoy!
During the ballet, I find the best relative seating is near an uncle or aunt who is good at whispering snarky comments under their breath. Failing that, a cousin who always has snacks with them.
I see lots of productions (33 last year) and as an expert at tickets I’d suggest the mezz row N. As a rule extreme left or right matters less and less the farther back you go.
Also notice that the mezz overhangs to row J of the orchestra, which means that the first row dress circle is basically 10 rows from the stage.
For ballet I prefer to be above the perfomers so as to see the choreographers shapes better. Also for both ballet and opera, the sound coming from the pit sounds better in the balcony than the orchestra seats.
And now my last tip. When you arrive at the theater inquire at the box office about “trading up”. I always ask at will call if any better seats are available. Several times I’ve gotten better seats for a nominal price increase.
Enjoy!
Thanks for the input, everyone! We decided to go for the mezzanine seats. I recall going to a ballet a few years ago and having very close-up seats off to the side; it did make viewing difficult, but it was interesting to see the sweat on the dancers’ faces!
I can’t wait to see the show. :)
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