Window on another world: my view of "Raymonda"

If nothing else, seeing "Raymonda" this week was a reminder of what it's like for many people to go to the opera. I don't go to the ballet often, and I don't believe I'd seen the Mariinsky live before, so I was swept up in a certain thrill at the sheer spectacle, the physicality of the time-capsule that was opened in its dusty, pre-Rafaelitic glory (all those medieval tunics and gowns) on the stage before me. And I saw immediately that the review I'd read -- my colleague Sarah Kaufman's -- was c...