A knife edge few days. Waiting to see if the loan got okayed. The kids and I spent the weekend on the Macs. Googling new homes. Kentish Town was the compromise location. Which is a bit like leaving Toad Hall to live on the riverbank with Rat. Through it all, spirits have been high. Finally tonight, I got the call. 6.30. The money's coming:-) A glorious relief as it buys six months grace. And yet so anti-climactic. The war spirit has created a joyful stoicism chez nous. A stoicism that stretches to moments of madness. Like La Boheme at the Coliseum last night. Where the English libretto included classic lines. Such as I've been landed with a prat. We left in a state of distress. Wondering how much of opera is actually dross? If we could understand everything sung, would we all switch back to Dylan? Discuss. On the way home, we stopped at Tesco on Bedfordbury. As we approached the till, a cheery assistant insisted we try the personal check-out. Fifteen minutes later we'd finally processed a basket that took just five minutes to fill. On Saturday, a lovely evening with my former in-laws. Pizzas on Victoria Street. And catching up with gossip. Then a real treat. Billy Elliot. It was absolutely stonking. The use of vernacular was witty. It lifted the nondescript music to undeserved heights. Unlike the ENO. Where banality ruins the finest tunes ever written. The dancing was fantastic, too. We emerged feeling that things can only get better. And so it has proved to be:-)
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
A knife edge few days. Waiting to see if the loan got okayed. The kids and I spent the weekend on the Macs. Googling new homes. Kentish Town was the compromise location. Which is a bit like leaving Toad Hall to live on the riverbank with Rat. Through it all, spirits have been high. Finally tonight, I got the call. 6.30. The money's coming:-) A glorious relief as it buys six months grace. And yet so anti-climactic. The war spirit has created a joyful stoicism chez nous. A stoicism that stretches to moments of madness. Like La Boheme at the Coliseum last night. Where the English libretto included classic lines. Such as I've been landed with a prat. We left in a state of distress. Wondering how much of opera is actually dross? If we could understand everything sung, would we all switch back to Dylan? Discuss. On the way home, we stopped at Tesco on Bedfordbury. As we approached the till, a cheery assistant insisted we try the personal check-out. Fifteen minutes later we'd finally processed a basket that took just five minutes to fill. On Saturday, a lovely evening with my former in-laws. Pizzas on Victoria Street. And catching up with gossip. Then a real treat. Billy Elliot. It was absolutely stonking. The use of vernacular was witty. It lifted the nondescript music to undeserved heights. Unlike the ENO. Where banality ruins the finest tunes ever written. The dancing was fantastic, too. We emerged feeling that things can only get better. And so it has proved to be:-)
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Ah. Now here you hit a sensitive point. Opera is an art form that does not readily fit into the C21st. It is serious, uncompromising, highly and tautly constructed. Don Giovanni or Peter Grimes are not the base for a treatment; they are whole and complete and perfected. To create a succesful opera is one of the most difficult acts of creation imaginable (I hasten to add that I haven't); the synthesis of music and words, movement and drama, story and progression requires almost unbearable effort.
Then some dopey plonker from a failing opera "experience" decides that he might get some publicity from a modern treatment, and, not satisfied with modern dress and set, he improves the music, enhances the libretto, gives his own twist to the drama. And renders it junk. Far from making it acessible - I'm sorry, opera is not accessible, it requires an effort and preparation, then it gives the proper pleasure - far from making it accessible, he turns it to nonsense. As you and your poor aurally insulted guests discovered. What should be uplifting, stirring, self-reveleratory is made distressing, annoying, irritating. The greatest music of our civilisation becomes the buzzing backgound to the acting out of ludicrous juvenilities.
ENO is the worst opera house in the world and should be allowed to die quickly (and preferably in silence). After their ghastely reordering of Don Giovanni I vowed never to enter the wretched place again. But try some of the great Italian houses, or even our own ROH (although they too cannot resist messing up the original sometimes), or best of all, one of the summer country touring productions. Opera when true to its composition will give you a taste of heaven!
The problem with the ROH is that the tickets are so damned expensive, and the last time I looked, they didn't do concessionary prices for children. That said, it is perhaps better to see one production there every four months than the ENO every two... Thankfully Monday's event was aimed at children, and their seats were a mere £3. Had they been more, I would have asked for my money back...
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