My training
has gone well over the last month and things are looking good for a fairly well
filled season ahead. Going along with that, I have been tired but have slept
very well. On top of that I have been busy with the rest of life too. We still
manage to get out a bit to relax but usually still with sports friends. There
are several little groups with whom we love to share social outings. They are
all swimmers, though not all triathletes.
We go out
to dinner after the club swim sometimes and that set varies, between 6-10 of us,
though not dressing up and all having goggles marks around our eyes after our
swim training. Then there is a smaller group who go to the small local art
house cinema when something grabs our joint attention. A smaller group
generally three or four, who go on more serious theatre trips that have to be
booked months in advance. I book those myself. We nearly always make an evening
of it, with a nice dinner somewhere before hand. Then there is the final group
that are opera lovers. We do take a little more time getting dressed for those,
maybe Glyndebourne or a gala evening somewhere, again meeting up with a wider
group of other athletes.
So last
week when one of the ‘Opera’ crowd said that La Bohème was on in Worthing and
shall we go, I left the arrangements to her thinking it was one of the, ‘Live
From’ filmed live performances, usually from a West End theatre or the Royal
Opera House or maybe from the New York Metropolitan Opera House. Those evenings
are a big favourite because they are such amazing value. These, you get to see
in your local cinema for £12-15 and you get to see the very same performance
that the rich folk, in their diamonds are paying £250 each for in the Opera
House proper.
That was
what I thought we were going to last night. Even though the tickets were twice
the usual cinema price but thought no more of it other than everything goes up
in price sooner or later. However, with my busy training schedule when the time
came, I had forgotten that we were going out at all until the last moment as we
left the house to go to our regular Saturday evening Trinity Club Swim session.
We were both dressed in jeans, a scruffy sweater and trainers without even
putting any socks on. I only remembered then, because my friend had sent a text
to say ‘See you in the car park or the foyer’.
I did get my
swim in, whilst Steve coached the club session. This added to the ghastly state
of my appearance by finding myself with no time to attend to look in a mirror.
I had wet rat’s tails hanging from my head, down to the cable jumper I had worn
for two days. Steve had his work anorak over his jeans and sweat shirt.
When we
parked and hurried to meet the group in the foyer we discovered that it was a
live performance by Close Up Opera, who had recently won an award as Best New
Opera Company. Our friend, who had excused herself from swimming that evening,
was a picture of elegance, face made up prettily, feminine clothes and shoes.
The only male friend, who is always nicely turned out, with his smooth silver
pony tail was looking decidedly dignified. The last member of our swim group
was wearing a smart bronze brocade jacket and had taken some trouble to do her
hair.
None the less they were pleased that we had
even made it on time and George who describes himself as central European,
stepped forward to plant two kisses charmingly on my cheeks. I hurriedly
apologised to the group but Steve could not have cared less as we were given
tickets for our front row seats!
Close Up
Opera, are not self named lightly and after the first act the action moved into
the fully illuminated auditorium with the cast moving about the theatre
continuing the well known opera in English and I felt, quite loosely
translated. The one line that I questioned from the original libretto was, “She
changes her mind more often than she changes her knickers”.
It was an
astonishing new production of Puccini’s famous work and brought a heavyweight work
like this right down to earth. My husband, who usually hates it when modern
dress is used, had to admit that it worked well in this brilliant take on the
original work. One of our party was a virgin opera goer and remarked that she
had no idea it would be funny, at which point I told her to make the most of it
because that would not last into the final act, that, would bring out the
hankies.
We were all
happy that we had been lucky enough for at least one of us to have spotted this
little small gem of a company, who are on a national tour. They will be a
household name before you can say Mimi!
Thank you
Close Up Opera, for a marvellous evening with the stuffiness knocked right out of
Grand Opera. My name is on their mailing list now.
No comments:
Post a Comment