Oh, you were so right about the ennui. Even though I dozed off countless times during Les Amants Reguliers I still have a major hair crush on Clotilde Hesme and an unexplained hankering to wear a rumpled white shirt at all times. And that Louis Garrel is quite fit too.
I am, as noted the other week when I attended the opera, both shallow and entirely unrefined. At the opera my seat had been made for a Victorian child and was WAY, WAY, up in the balcony thingy whatever you call it, where I had my first experience of vertigo.
I did not know how I was going to make it through to the interval, whereupon I would be able to collect another exhorbitant (£6.75) glass of below average wine, drink it in the dullsville corporate carpeted surroundings of the ENO and retain the will to live. I thought opera was supposed to be glamorous. My not knowing how I was going to make it through had nothing to do with the seat or the wine, it was because the opera was so, so BORING and it was impossible to find a comfortable sleeping position in those tiny seats. I have been to the opera twice before - once in Italy - and fell asleep both times. There, I am a philistine. I can't say which opera I went to see this time because I know someone who was in it, hence my being there to see the tiny little speck that was apparently she flounce across the stage for 3.2 seconds going, "aaahhohoholalalalahahahahaaaaa". At the end the man next to us started clapping like a circus seal and bellowing "Bravo! Bravo!" at which point my companion and I could not take it any more, burst into giggles, bypassed the stage door luvvie fest and went to the pub.
(Of course all this "Oh, but the opera was simply hideous" business was before the bomb scare agogo game we like to play when attempting to travel anywhere in London at the moment. Get on any form of transportation and see if you ever arrive at your chosen destination. Saturday night we were feeling all hardcore. It was pissing with rain, freezing cold, there was a small chance of being blown up, but still we attempted to Carry On As Normal and Go Out. We were forced back by police with news of An Incident which of course was probably someone leaving their McDonalds wrapper on the tube platform or something. Seriously, thank you police, good job and all that, has to be done. A wild card yesterday was the addition of giant hailstones and freak flooding right in the middle of rush hour. So this is how I end up at home watching black and white modern French films that are a response to other modern European films that are both in homage to the atmosphere of the student demonstrations of 1968 Paris and have the same lead actor. And that I only wanted to watch in the first place because I liked Clotilde Hesme's hair on the cover of the DVD.)
I know I said I was taking a break but I'm bored and it's raining.
1 comment:
I rather like the opera myself, but must admit it's an acquired taste. The opera isn't really about glamor, at least here in the UK or for that matter in the US (unless you go on opening night). It's about trying to enjoy the music whilst your knees are crushed and squinting at distant scenery. European houses still have a bit more style, and better snacks at the interval. Try Covent Garden perhaps. You get top artists and can have an expensive but good drink in the interval. Cheers, BB
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