I have almost regained the level of listening, watching and doing I enjoyed when I lived in the Oxford area from 1981-2000. Today I sang and sang and sang. Yesterday I listened - intently.
Last evening The husband and I bade farewell to The Dog (sorry, old boy, but you can't come, they don't do "dog" tickets) and drove a dozen miles to see Mid-Wales Opera put on a performance of Acis and Galatea, by GF Handel.
Here is a review, which enthusiastically agrees with my own assessment of the show and names all the right names.
I was enraptured, ravished, seduced. We both were. It was a rather silly pastoral mythical plot, as befits a baroque masque, but it was awfully well done. I already knew the music, but I'd never seen it staged. To have both sound and vision was wonderful.
Et In Arcadia Ego, I thought.
I then again drove the same dozen miles first thing this morning to attend a lengthy Saturday rehearsal of Rossini's Petite Messe Solonnelle, which will be performed by Montgomeryshire Festival Choir on the second weekend in May, in the same theatre where we saw last night's Handel.
It's a stonking piece, in the same lustrous and luxurious C19th Italianate vein as the Verdi Requiem, only on a smaller scale; a delicate, delicious Rossini religious chamber work as opposed to Verdi's marvellous mega-bucks spiritual grandiosity.
But I think none the less of it for that.
If you live in Montgomeryshire, I will be able to order tickets for you in March.
If you aren't, I know several good B&Bs
Hari Om
ReplyDeleteThis is enheartening - culture reaching deeply. I move to Dunoon in a fortnight and have discovered the Queens Hall has a one night only showing of Ballet West's Swan Lake... that'll do me!! Hope you get lots of interest for your local one.
Music truly is a balm, is it not? YAM xx
India to Scotland in February? You will freeze your bits off, Yam. Buy'/knit lots of woolies and you may even survive until May.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your Tchaikovsky. I can't cope with ballet. I keep waiting for them to stop flitting about and sing. Whereas balletomanes want opera singers to shut it and get up onto their toes.
I'm glad it more than lived up to your expectations. :-) That's a super review and obviously very well deserved. I do hope the theatre was packed despite the weather. You had a horrible day for your rehearsal too, so we must hope it's glorious spring by the time the performance itself comes round.
ReplyDeleteIt outstripped my expectations, as it looked so much better than previous productions I've seen by this company; a very clever set and charmingly simple and effective costumes lifted it above the standard I'd seen before.
DeleteIn September they are doing Carmen, produced by - wait for it - Jonathan Miller. Interested?