So, to change the mood, I took myself into FACT in Liverpool to see the cinecast of the New York Met's presentation of Patrice Chéreau’s acclaimed production of Richard Strauss's Elektra.
There were three transfers this week.
On Monday afternoon, Ross was transferred from Aintree hospital to the Wood View Unit at Broadgreen Hospital. Ross's parents and I visited him while he was there. It was quite clearly not as therapeutic a place as Clock View and seemed to be full of skanky scallies who were either jittery as the came down from something or blissed out as they were on their way up.
So, we all breathed out when Ross transferred over to Clock View on the Thursday.
That afternoon, I also got my transfer papers in the guise of a formal agreement which I had to sign. I could have wished that it had not been placed in terms which indicated that there had been some sort of rancorous dispute. But that, I guess, is just how the protocol works.
My Union Rep told me that I had been offered a very generous severance package (for which I thanked him) and that my headteacher must have thought very highly of me but I still could not stop the wailing, snarling beast within me from labelling me as a failure.
Next Friday will be my last day in this school.
I decided that I wasn't going to over-work myself during the weekend.
So, to change the mood, I took myself into FACT in Liverpool to see the cinecast of the New York Met's presentation of Patrice Chéreau’s acclaimed production of Richard Strauss's Elektra.
Esa-Pekka Salonen took the helm to co-ordinate the vast orchestral resources with the stage action. It was very good technically but, as with the staging, I felt that there are moments in this piece (of all pieces) that do need to feel unhinged rather than everything being completely controlled throughout.
The cast were excellent. Nina Stemme's Elektra was in a dark, dark place from the violence she had seen (?) and the mental (?) abuse she had suffered. She was lucid and concentrated of vengeance from the start manipulating her sister and mother to her own ends from the start.
Adrianne Pieczonka's Chrysothemis was an excellent foil while Waltraud Meier's Klytæmnestra was portrayed as a mother and matriarch trying to hold things together rather than as the usual raddled, power-crazed loon. Neither of the male principals gets a lot to do. Eric Owens gave of his best as Orest: Burkhard Ulrich did very little with the role of Aegisthus.
I was happily swamped by the experience for a good hour and forty minutes.