Category: Music

Robinson Crusoë – The Opera

Even Wexford has shied away from Offenbach’s operetta, Robinson Crusoë. It has rarely been performed since it premiered in Paris in 1867. In fact it ran for only thirteen performances and then slumbered like Rip Van Winkle until it was awakened (woke?) at the Camden Festival in 1973. 

La fille du régiment

Some twelve years ago I was invited to a Sunday lunch party in Marylebone and sat beside Elena Roger. Sunday was her only day off so it was flattering that she was prepared to spend it with my friends and me.

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Categorised as 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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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.