London and Back
27 September

The last time that I sat in the London Coliseum was for Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw back in December 2007.

That's nearly three years ago now.

And that must be one of the longest gaps in attendance since I first went there to see an opera back in August 1974 (La Traviata by the way - with Josephine Barstow as Violetta, John Brecknock as Alfredo, Neil Howlett as Giorgio Germont and John Wilks conducting).

I guess that the hiatus is a measure of a number of things. Certainly my willingness to bear the cost of travelling to London. Also my desire to seek out interesting repertoire. And, consequent on those two factors, my view each year, when I look at ENO's upcoming plans, that I don't wish to invest in what they have on offer.

So, why this trip?

Well, I wanted to see Janacek's The Makropulos Case. I last attended a performance of this work in May 1989, ironically in a performance by English National Opera at the London Coliseum.

But, in reality, this was about Roland and I trying out a wizard scheme. Because of the amount of business travelling which he does, Virgin Trains offer him the chance to travel at weekends using First Class for free. We decided to give it a go. I also spotted an offer in The Daily Telegraph offering seats for the Sunday matinee performance at half price. So we travelled there and back in the day, ate at Gaby's on Charing Cross Road and saw the opera for a reasonable sum of money.

I can't say that it's something that I would wish to do every weekend and, given that Makropulos is a relatively short work, it was a lot of effort for a compacted return.

Was it worth it? Well, it was certainly a jeux d'esprit. I wouldn't want to attempt something like that every weekend. I felt that the production was hard and brittle when some warmth would have made the whole more affecting. Singing was good from Amanda Roocroft, Andrew Shore, Peter Hoare, Ashley Holland and others. Richard Armstrong conducted well. Good, I'd have thought rather than anything more.

As we travelled I read Number9Dream by David Mitchell. This year, I've read Ghostwritten, Black Swan Green and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Before then end of teh year, I must try to read Cloud Atlas once more so as to complete the full cannon.

Number9Dream is, in its own ways, very good. It is just not so good as I wanted it to be. I don think that he a very excellent author, however.