Category: Music

Poppycock

Something really rather irritating happened on the last night of the Wexford Festival on Sunday evening. I was wearing with pride an enamel shamrock poppy and found on Monday morning that I’d lost it.

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Last Night

Risurrezione by Franco Alfano (1875–1954) has been acclaimed as this year’s Wexford hit and so the festival went out on a high note on the last night on Sunday when we saw it.

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Margherita

A margarita is a cocktail consisting of tequila, triple sec, and lime or lemon juice, often served with salt or sugar on the rim of the glass. The drink is served shaken with ice, blended with ice, or without ice (Wiki). A performance of Margherita, an opera by Jacopo Foroni (1824–1858), is rarer than the similar… Continue reading Margherita

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Tosca

It’s not easy to date the opera house in Rome because it has twice been altered. Most recently the facade (not my greatest picture) was re-done in 1958. Prior to that, in the 1920s, there was a substantial make-over.

Lucia

On Wednesday I went to a Friends of Fulham Opera gig in their unprepossessing home at St John’s Church – they have the builders in.

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Amlodipine

I have been feeling off-colour all summer. There is a constant metallic taste in my mouth, loss of appetite and general lassitude. I feel tired after quite short walks. I feel twenty years older than I am.

Mahler’s Sixth

Friday morning: persistent rain, ditto hangover and the hinges on the freezer door have broken. Consolation: good for garden, hangover acquired most pleasurably, no food in freezer.

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Liguria

The shift from summer to autumn is marked by the Proms drawing to a close. I was at my penultimate concert on Wednesday.

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Making Music

I invited a great-niece and a god-daughter to a Prom this week. In hunting terminology this is called running a bitch pack and is a compliment. Tom Isaacs, a famous huntsman at the end of the 19th century, said that “his bitch pack were the ones for killing foxes” but forrard, forrard (another hunting term).