Category: Music

Culture in Chisinau

I bet you are bored with Election Observation protocol, so I will reward your patience with what really happens in the field.

Lunch in Covent Garden

It is enjoyable to invite friends to something. The criteria are: it should be something they could reasonably be expected to enjoy, it should be something they might not do themselves, it should be something I can afford to pay for.

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Categorised as Music

Coo!

Asphodel Meadows sounds like a character in Gone with the Wind. ‘I do declare, Miss Asphodel,  – you’re pretty as a peach in that gown.’

The Queen of Spades

The Queen of Spades at Covent Garden has a lot of super music and is an interesting production by Norwegian director Stefan Herheim. The road to operatic hell is paved with ‘interesting’ productions.

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Categorised as Music, Travel

Choral Matins in Chelsea

General Sir Charles Redmond Watt, “Reddy” to his friends, was given a pair of socks for Christmas. General Sir Nick Carter got golf balls.

Hallelujah

A few events I went to in November went unrecorded here. The rarely performed five act version of Don Carlo, sung in Italian, put on by Fulham Opera for starters.

Social Anthropology

I read Anthropology (and Psychology and English) at Durham. The origins of Man were hard to get a grip on and defeated me. However, I did enjoy Social Anthropology. It may have inspired trips in later years to the Middle East, Africa and the Caucasus.

Viscount Norwich, CVO

Lord Rothschild represented The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall. I represented you, readers who share my admiration for John Julius Norwich, on Wednesday.

Restaurants and a Requiem

Oh dear, I’ve gone into reverse. Today’s post is about Saturday evening. Over many years I have had memorable meals in some pretty swanky restaurants, often paid for by a special friend.

My Wexford Years

I was lucky enough to go to the old opera house at Wexford, in a converted cinema, about twelve years ago. This morning I’d like to introduce you to Margaret Tinsley who can claim with justification to be a genuine Wexford veteran and is a welcome Guest Blogger.