Starstruck & Unsophisticated at the Opera

As you may know, gentle readers, I do rather love a bit of opera. Singing it, listening to it, watching it, trying to understand the complicated "swapped at birth"/"disguise" story lines and so on.  Imagine my excitement on receiving a coveted ticket to Tosca at the Royal Opera House (from a friend who basically lurks, submerged except for his nostrils, on the ROH box office website all the time waiting to pounce on unbelievably cheap tickets to amazing shows - read his blog, he may give away his secret!) 

I was lucky as a child to experience musicals, plays, ballet, dance, concerts and so on of wide and varied standards.  School productions, local shows (including a panto which turned out unexpectedly to be so "blue" my parents told me it had finished at the interval), musicals on the big stage in Manchester, London and once, thrillingly, on Broadway.  I saw Welsh National Opera's "The Marriage Of Figaro" - my first live opera and still my favourite opera. All of these were important, special, stand-out occasions to me, the memories of which are clear and cherished.

As a family we always watched any music competition that was televised, and other signal landmark events: carols from Kings at Christmas, Last Night of the Proms.  I grew up to a mixed "shuffle" soundtrack from which various things stand out in my sepia tinted aural memory: Benny Goodman (dad plays clarinet), The Beatles, Abba, The Carpenters as well as Mozart, Weber, Beethoven, Fred Astaire's back catalogue, and so on and so on.  (Not so much Rock or Funk, but hey).  So for me music has always been part of our daily life but also part of our treats, celebrations, once-in-a-lifetimes.

My point is this: Has this made me take any of it for granted? De-mystified any of it, made it a bit everyday? Simply: No.

Tosca was simply amazing.  Bryn Terfel was astonishing - compelling, sinister, menacing, totally authoritative even to his last gasp as a murder victim.  Angela Georghiu's "big diva moment" - her second act Aria as she pleads for her lover's life - (and which one assumes she has performed many times more often than the role complete, being a crowd pleasing concert favorite) was captivating and yielded "mid-action" applause (interestingly, as I dimly perceive, clapping at the "wrong" time is a hazard for the unwary - in fact one dauntless clapper was audibly shushed by more right thinking operagoers during act one, although the audience was not at all inhibited about showing their approval at the end of the act - roaring - or during the curtain calls - foot stamping, shouting, whooping).

Antonio Pappano's conducting, (of which, given our "restricted view" eyrie we had a bird's eye view) was unknowably and yet in some way palpably the dynamo of unstoppable energy keeping the whole thing moving relentlessly and powerfully forward.  The (incidentally extremely beautiful) Jonas Kaufmann was seemingly faultless in every way, his movements, gesture, let alone his awe-inspiring "is he still holding that unbelievable note" singing. As for Puccini - I think I have found a new love.  (Don't worry Mozart, you'll always be my first).  I think that's probably a whole other blog post though. 

Walking into ROH for Tosca I felt a level of excitement roughly equivalent to that which would be unleashed if we were to tell our daughter that we were taking her to Disneyland (we are not - Mr Life After Law feels he simply needs longer to brace himself quite apart from remortgage the house to pay for it!).

Quite apart from the sneaking "oh wow it is ACTUALLY Bryn and Angela - "Bryngela?? -" feeling I was simply overcome by the whole thing.  Opera is exciting.  Opera is fun and magical and moving and allows you to transcend yourself.  And I had this fabulous experience for £9.40 per ticket.

Opera is, above all, AFFORDABLE and accessible - everything has subtitles.  And in my view, opera is irreplaceable.  (If I had my time again I wish I'd run away to try my luck and abilities as an opera singer.  You know what I did instead.)

So when will the junior branch of the team be exposed to opera? Well, they hear it round the house a lot as you can imagine ("Mummy, (weary sigh from 7 going on 25) must you sing so LOUD?").  And if you allow the work of Messrs Gilbert & Sullivan as at the very least light operetta, then they are both well used to the genre.

I can't wait til their first time at a big opera house.  They have so far loved village hall panto, English National Ballet, The Gruffalo, G&S and so on with equal relish.  And I hope I am giving them some memories to match those for which I am so grateful to my own parents!

(May I also add, that I now fully understand why my parents would occasionally bring their own gin and tonic - taking small people to the theatre is ultimately rewarding yet fairly exhausting!)

Restricted View.....

They say you never forget your First Time, and I have to agree.  In my case my First Time going to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden........and I went to see an opera that I love, Mozart's Die Zauberflote, or the Magic Flute.

(I'm not going to attempt a review of the performance because I am far to ignorant for my opinion to be informative, but also I loved everything about it! There are loads of bloggers online, many on Twitter who review opera brilliantly and in detail, with wit and intelligence and, above all, knowledge!  Read them!)

Ooooh get me! Sound pretentious?? Why? It was magical, beautiful, thrilling, enchanting, inspiring, but above all accessible.  The tickets, "restricted view", bought well in advance were the grand sum of £7.50 each. And despite being "restricted view" I could see virtually all of the staging for the production - although I couldn't see the back of the stage - fortunately much of the action took place in the majority that I could see!

It was a Saturday matinee performance and the house was almost full with adults, children, teenagers (because they are a separate category, aren't they) evidencing an almost bewildering variety of background and provenance in their choice of dress - from emo/goth to bordering on evening dress!

Prices for bar snacks and programmes were not prohibitive and I even ran to a half time ice-cream.

And it was, genuinely, exciting to be in such a beautiful, well known building with such a wealth of history seeping out of the walls.  Everywhere I looked there were photos, costumes on display, information, history - OPERA! Everyone who is anyone has stood on that stage and sung (my co-superfan suggested that we bunk on to the stage at the end and just sing anything, humpty dumpty , whatever so we could say we had done so) and I felt as I sound writing now.  Like a giddy, overwhelmed, naive, enthusiastic, joyous beginner discovering something wonderful that no-one had ever seen before! Although I felt inhibited about exclaiming or coo-ing too publicly about each nugget of operatic gold on display, most people seemed distinctly too cool to acknowledge any excitement, or perhaps just got to be there so often that they had already got it out of their system.

The singers were wonderful - I particularly enjoyed Elizabeth Meister as the First Lady, but everyone was wonderful.  The Queen of the Night had been flown in to cover illness and, we were told, it was her 709th performance (or thereabouts).  (My YouTube research and blog devouring tells me this is called "einspringen" - jumping in at the last minute, I just like the word - does what it says!).

I've overflowed with naive (yet hopefully charming) exuberance for long enough.  I'll never forget my first time at the ROH and I can't wait til my children are old enough to come too and enjoy it with me.  And we will run around together looking at every picture and exclaiming. And, naturally, have a half time ice-cream.

(Postscript: we were amused to see the battle-weary musicians in the pit matter-of factly packing away their instruments and scarpering in short order. The pit was empty pretty much before the applause had died away.  But then they had about two hours to eat, rest etc before arriving to start all over again!)

The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd....

My little sister threatened to stage an intervention for my "internet addiction" as a result of a 6 posts in 10 days frenzy of blogging.  Shortly after which I did disappear from the blogosphere. However, this wasn't an attempt to convince my sister that I am still normal despite not having to go to an office every day (too little too late to convince her I fear, she knows me too well!).

I've been out and about dear Reader (I know I have at least one, even if it's only out of duty/pity).

I have (since I last inflicted myself on the blogosphere) performed a principal role in a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, been to the Royal Opera House (my first time ever - and yes the earth did move for me) and at the other end of the glamor and escapism scale continued my "helping" out at the kids school (I'm only allowed to use the safety scissors though), done the "Rainbows" rota, been to an Autism support drop in session, balanced the grocery books (complexity beyond the worst set of tangled family trust fund worth millions) and done a thousand and one mundane household things, far too many involving unspeakably soiled laundry and impossibly tiny fragments of food in improbable crevices.

I am, it's fair to say, "mummy" through and through and with every fibre of my being.  I am still at the stage where my "spider senses" are honed to the degree that I have managed to arrive at sick child's bedside with appropriate waterproof vomit receptacle before the sheets are decorated without really being awake.  And yet, performance whether on the stage or watching, rapt, from (VERY HIGH) up in the balcony is a wonderful transforming escapism.

I'm still mummy and if one of the children isn't right then there will still be molecules of my brain vibrating at that "concern" frequency - but they are drowned out by the roar of the crowd, just for a time, leaving me totally refreshed for when I wipe off said greasepaint, or emerge (via many many many corridors and steps) blinking into the fresh air.

This is why, for me the arts and music are important.  (I know that Mr Life After Law would speak in similar terms of that moment at the crease as the bowler runs up and you are blinking the sweat out of your eyes ready to make your 50).  They offer us all the opportunity, not to evade or reject our responsibilities but (in my case) just to set down the burden temporarily and rest by the road. And then, get back up and get on with it. But slightly less irritably.

I recently played "Phyllis" in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta "Iolanthe" -and each show there was a moment of balance and tranquility - the sort of "I love it when a plan comes together" moment as the scene or the duet came together under the heat of the stage lighting, when you know you and your co-stars have got it together and you have the audience with you.  And it was GREAT. Bring on the next show.  Til then, I'll be  hanging out for cheap tickets to the Royal Opera House and hanging on every note, til it's back to reality.