As well as accessing opera through electronic media, I've also been attending. A brisk
journey up the M6 took me to Ulverston for a performance by English Touring Opera of
Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff.
Well, for some time, we've been referring to the back parlour at Kimberley Avenue as the Music Room.
As the decoration is finally coming together and the shelves are going up and the CDs and DVDs and black vinyl records and cassette tapes and videos and programmes and books and magazines are coming out of their boxes, it is quite obvious that this is far more a media room - and so it will stay.
I've been indulging in the joys of peer-to-peer networking. Now, you'll immediately think porn and you are right that there is a lot of it about. But it's not all nookie. I typed florez into the search machine and came up with all sorts of goodies. So far, I have the following examples from the divo's repertoire...
I'm currently downloading a version of Bellini's I puritani, also from Las Palmas, and I also have a version of Ariadne auf Naxos from the Paris Opera with Natalie Dessay.
As well as accessing opera through electronic media, I've also been attending. A brisk
journey up the M6 took me to Ulverston for a performance by English Touring Opera of
Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff.
This year had been a good year for ETO performances. Both
Cosi fan tutte and
Ariodante rated four stars. This
Falstaff I can't give more than two.
![[Two Stars - Average]](2.gif){kind=small}
Partially the
venue was to blame. A boomy accoustic in a hall with inadequate backstage facilties
did little to lift the evening. But really it was maybe just a bit too adventurous for
the company.
Our Falstaff was Andrew Slater who was in both of the four star evenings but didn't
really command the stage as he should in that part. Most of the rest of the case were
new to me and we passably OK. I liked Craig Smith's tortured Ford but no-one else
made a strong impression.
Sunday night, Ross and I got to see Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire at last. For a two and a half hour film, it manages
to convey the broad outline of the plot very well but an awful lot was left out - Dobby
and SPEW went completely. Still, the effects were astonishing. The Quidditch World Cup
stadium was jaw-dropping and the dragons and the mer-folk were rather good. There was
some good interplay between the main characters but everything was taken at such a
break-neck pace that there was not time to settle on anyone's emotions really. Still,
three stars for a good night out.
![[Three Stars - Good]](3.gif){kind=small}
And, at the risk of being accused of perving over a 16 year old, the sixform bathroom scene with Moaning Myrtle was quite funny and young Daniel appears to have been working out - presumably with his future career in mind.
There was a reference on EastEnders the other day to newlyweds and sex. The idea was the one mentioned in these postings many times before of putting pennies back in the bottle. Being cautious about it, Ross and I think that, over the nine years of our time together, we've more than taken the first year's store of pennies out of the jar and are quite happy to be in defecit.
This seems to be an admirable way to celebrate the onset of civil unions in the UK today.