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My Little Hands Were Not Freezing
Feb. 24th, 2006 10:46 amI've never seen anything quite like Puccini's La Boheme. I got free tickets for last night's performance and invited Kevin to come along. I thought to myself that it was going to be another opera with some pretty scenery, vocal acrobatics and an orchestra to watch and lose myself in. I was not expecting 50+ people on stage: waiters on rollerblades, dancing couples dressed in 1940s outfits, children waving french flags, a muscleman that did summersaults and pirouttes, 20 floating black & white balloons tied to a salesman's head, soldiers, lesbians, prancy gay artists, and a big sign that screamed MOMUS.
The Royal Albert Hall was packed, just like the last time I was there (to see Morrissey). We had amazing seats, row 8 in the stalls. Right in front of us were two older couples, both of the women wearing expensive jewellery and stretched faces, the men grey and tight in their bulging suits. But there were also other people, like ourselves, who seemed to have got their hands on free tickets and were mingling with the rich: a pair of orange-coloured women wearing tacky little tops and big hair, american students with braces, art types who probably had won their tickets through a competition on Classic FM.
I would enjoy seeing an opera soon sung in another language. This is the third opera now that I've seen in London, and all three of them were sung in english. It's just that... the english language doesn't lend itself too well to opera. When someone is singing "Who is that at the door? Oh it's just the landlord", you want to laugh. La Boheme was moving and beautiful, but would have been so much more, for myself, if I had heard it in its original language (french? italian?) People beside me were dabbing their eyes by the end and there were tons of amazed exclamations through out the whole thing; the stars got a massive ovation, with whistles and catcalls, and two (traditional) flower bouquets delivered to the two main women.
I got home just in time to watch the debut of Morrissey's video for his new single You Have Killed Me. I was underwhelmed.
The Royal Albert Hall was packed, just like the last time I was there (to see Morrissey). We had amazing seats, row 8 in the stalls. Right in front of us were two older couples, both of the women wearing expensive jewellery and stretched faces, the men grey and tight in their bulging suits. But there were also other people, like ourselves, who seemed to have got their hands on free tickets and were mingling with the rich: a pair of orange-coloured women wearing tacky little tops and big hair, american students with braces, art types who probably had won their tickets through a competition on Classic FM.
I would enjoy seeing an opera soon sung in another language. This is the third opera now that I've seen in London, and all three of them were sung in english. It's just that... the english language doesn't lend itself too well to opera. When someone is singing "Who is that at the door? Oh it's just the landlord", you want to laugh. La Boheme was moving and beautiful, but would have been so much more, for myself, if I had heard it in its original language (french? italian?) People beside me were dabbing their eyes by the end and there were tons of amazed exclamations through out the whole thing; the stars got a massive ovation, with whistles and catcalls, and two (traditional) flower bouquets delivered to the two main women.
I got home just in time to watch the debut of Morrissey's video for his new single You Have Killed Me. I was underwhelmed.
