Like everything else, ballet always comes back to Sweet Valley

The Bolshoi Ballet is in town, at the Kennedy Center performing Coppelia. I'm somewhat tempted to see it; partly because I've become vaguely interested in ballet since seeing some during my Russia trip last summer, and partly because of Coppelia. I read a book that involved that ballet years ago. Of course, that book was...Sweet Valley Twins #2: Teacher's Pet.

I am high-class, all the way.

In the book, Elizabeth and Jessica are in ballet together, and their class is putting on part of Coppelia in a recital. Elizabeth gets the most coveted role even though Jessica is the better dancer. And Amy Sutton steals the doll (Coppelia, I guess?) because she sucks at dancing, and after stealing the doll, she took the role of the doll.

I confess that I'm kind of intrigued to see how the actual ballet lines up with the plot as I remember it. It's always bizarre when something completely low-brow teaches you about actual culture. Or, like with the Outlander series, when a trashy romance novel teaches me about Scottish history. Everything I know about the Jacobite rebellions, I learned from Diana Gabaldon.

It's encouraging, really. I'm not, like, killing my brain by reading stuff. It might spark a completely unexpected interest.