I arise today refreshed!
Gone is the wingeing about lack of energy, revivimos, I feel new strength surge through my veins and am more than prepared to face the historical fray that awaits me on Monday!
Next week is also ¡Carnival! and, at the moment I have no idea how this is going to be celebrated in the school. I have quite hallucinogenically clear memories of how this was celebrated last year in The School That Sacked Me. Each class was expected to create a sea horse flag to wave on arrival of the Carnival King and also to perform a parade and ‘dance’ for his delight.
My vaguely medieval ‘costume’ (sewn with enthusiasm and little accuracy by my good self) comprised two sheets of vibrant silk-like material made into a rough tunic; a short cape, and the whole ensemble topped off by an overstated crown encrusted with cut up plastic mirrors. The overall effect was so striking that a ‘courtier’ of the Carnival King who was largely naked but wearing thigh length silver boots with 12” heels, a bouffant wig and silver glitter face actually asked to have his photograph taken with me! I think that has to be regarded as a triumph of some sort! Or possibly not.
The extraordinary collection of painted, costumed grotesques that accompanied the Carnival King reminded me of the worst excesses of New Orleans – god knows what part they played in the nightmares of the kids in succeeding days.
I particularly liked the bands that accompanied His Highness and filled the playground to the kids’ utter delight.
Admittedly the majority of kids in the school were primary, but the other sections of the place joined in and eventually the whole school had paid their respects to the visiting monarch.
And, as I recall, it was a half day!
I understand that we in secondary will celebrate by wearing costumes. Although I still have my medieval costume somewhere in the flat, I do not think that a new school in which I would probably like to teach in the future is necessarily ready for the apparition of me in my crown.
I think that it is probably politic to don the Harry Potter Alternative and go as one of the teachers from Hogwarts. The great advantage of this get up is that it is reasonably comfortable to wear during the day if I cut it down to the academic gown!
I keep extolling the virtues of The Week as my regular magazine which keeps me up to date with British and world news. It was a bitter sweet experience I had when I read the latest edition which informed me that The Royal Opera House had put on a production of ‘Die tote Stadt’ by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
This is one of those operas which if you know it at all will be from listening to CDs and it is also one of those operas (like ‘Four Saints in Three Acts’ by Virgil Thomson) that I would have made a special trip to London to see. However a combination of work, poverty and missed opportunity make my seeing it a very distant possibility. Pity, as it’s one of those operas that you can ‘tick off’ in your I-Spy book of Opera. One wonders just what sort of exquisite feather would be the reward to the true Operiste from Big Chief I-Spy for a volume authentically completed!
I suppose that I should be grateful: at one time a performance of ‘The Coronation of Poppea’ would have been just as rare as catching a production of Korngold and I’ve been able to see two Poppeas in different countries - even if it was the same production.
It is not long before the programme for the next season of operas in the Liceu is issued and this time I am determined to understand the almost incomprehensibly Byzantine complexity of the Season Ticket information!
Meanwhile it is studying history as if my life depended on it and hunting out my costume for the Carnival at the end of the week.
Never a dull moment – and long awaited visitors mid week!
Gone is the wingeing about lack of energy, revivimos, I feel new strength surge through my veins and am more than prepared to face the historical fray that awaits me on Monday!
Next week is also ¡Carnival! and, at the moment I have no idea how this is going to be celebrated in the school. I have quite hallucinogenically clear memories of how this was celebrated last year in The School That Sacked Me. Each class was expected to create a sea horse flag to wave on arrival of the Carnival King and also to perform a parade and ‘dance’ for his delight.
My vaguely medieval ‘costume’ (sewn with enthusiasm and little accuracy by my good self) comprised two sheets of vibrant silk-like material made into a rough tunic; a short cape, and the whole ensemble topped off by an overstated crown encrusted with cut up plastic mirrors. The overall effect was so striking that a ‘courtier’ of the Carnival King who was largely naked but wearing thigh length silver boots with 12” heels, a bouffant wig and silver glitter face actually asked to have his photograph taken with me! I think that has to be regarded as a triumph of some sort! Or possibly not.
The extraordinary collection of painted, costumed grotesques that accompanied the Carnival King reminded me of the worst excesses of New Orleans – god knows what part they played in the nightmares of the kids in succeeding days.
I particularly liked the bands that accompanied His Highness and filled the playground to the kids’ utter delight.
Admittedly the majority of kids in the school were primary, but the other sections of the place joined in and eventually the whole school had paid their respects to the visiting monarch.
And, as I recall, it was a half day!
I understand that we in secondary will celebrate by wearing costumes. Although I still have my medieval costume somewhere in the flat, I do not think that a new school in which I would probably like to teach in the future is necessarily ready for the apparition of me in my crown.
I think that it is probably politic to don the Harry Potter Alternative and go as one of the teachers from Hogwarts. The great advantage of this get up is that it is reasonably comfortable to wear during the day if I cut it down to the academic gown!
I keep extolling the virtues of The Week as my regular magazine which keeps me up to date with British and world news. It was a bitter sweet experience I had when I read the latest edition which informed me that The Royal Opera House had put on a production of ‘Die tote Stadt’ by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
This is one of those operas which if you know it at all will be from listening to CDs and it is also one of those operas (like ‘Four Saints in Three Acts’ by Virgil Thomson) that I would have made a special trip to London to see. However a combination of work, poverty and missed opportunity make my seeing it a very distant possibility. Pity, as it’s one of those operas that you can ‘tick off’ in your I-Spy book of Opera. One wonders just what sort of exquisite feather would be the reward to the true Operiste from Big Chief I-Spy for a volume authentically completed!
I suppose that I should be grateful: at one time a performance of ‘The Coronation of Poppea’ would have been just as rare as catching a production of Korngold and I’ve been able to see two Poppeas in different countries - even if it was the same production.
It is not long before the programme for the next season of operas in the Liceu is issued and this time I am determined to understand the almost incomprehensibly Byzantine complexity of the Season Ticket information!
Meanwhile it is studying history as if my life depended on it and hunting out my costume for the Carnival at the end of the week.
Never a dull moment – and long awaited visitors mid week!
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