A conclusion of sorts

Another beautiful day in which I feel too lethargically distant to take much pleasure in it.  I would consider that I am working at about 20%, though it is possible to boost this when I am in front of a class.  Sad but true.

Anyway a far more pressing problem is how to get the downloaded music from the i-store on to a disc so that I can play it in the car and thereby get to the know the music well enough not to think about how much I am paying for the privilege of sitting in a subsidized seat in the Liceu.

When Clarrie was working in WNO and I got to see what I wanted, including rehearsals it was a wonderful way of learning new operas.  It was a full dress rehearsal of The Makroplous Case that started my “stalking” of the WNO productions of the opera with the result that it is the opera I have seen most in my life.  I am sure that there are few opera fans who can say that!

There are some operas that I have seen once and that was enough: Tristan and Isolde (I know that the liebestod is wonderful but the rest of that turgid opera leaves me cold, like most of the paintings of Poussin; you admire the work but are less than impressed with the final result); “The Beach of Falesa” by the always dependably awful Alun Hoddinott; “The Making of the Representation of Planet 8” which was such a bitter disappointment after my delirious reception of a half heard and half recorded performance on Radio 3 of “Akhenaten.” 

There are others that heard once just makes you want to hear them again.  Top of that particular list is, of course, “Four Saints in Three Acts” which, when I heard it in the Coliseum reduced me to tears.  Tears which were quickly staunched when, turning to the lady on the left I said, “Wasn’t that wonderful!” to which she promptly replied, “No!”  Peasant!  “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” was a wonderful experience and, as I know the opera a little better now I would love to revisit.  But the opera I would most like (after “4 Sts.” - obviously!) to see again is “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” ideally with a cloned version of Marlene singing the Alabama Song.  Ah, if only!

But I have quite enough learning to do for the forthcoming season without indulging in fantasies about what might be.  I have, among others, Ligetti, Donizetti, Semlinsky, Vicent Martin i Soler, Debussy and Francesco Cilea: a hefty load!

An early bedtime last night after a lengthy sermon from Toni’s mum about what I should be eating and a diatribe against the consumption of cheese.  As Toni loathes cheese this was greeted, as you can imagine, with gleeful receptiveness and he barely contained a cheer as his mother urged me to throw the contents of the cheese box into the bin!

The doctor today was encouraging (in English) [I suppose] and informed me that my two weeks of feeling completely rubbish were a result of an skin infection on my left leg and nothing whatsoever to do with any suspect food.  I was roundly told off for not going to him sooner and the tedious pattern of Nurse visiting (“At you age you must have the flu jab!”) and blood tests before they decide whether or not to change my medication. 

Meanwhile my daily tablet intake has been boosted with a fourteen-day course of antibiotics. 

The doctor’s routine question about allergies elicited an exasperated response from him when I, just as routinely trotted out the family legend that I am, of course, allergic to the major breakthrough in antibiotics for the last two millennia: penicillin. 

This produced hurried consultations of books and colleagues (something guaranteed to lower patient confidence – but at least he didn’t guess the alternative) and an eventual new list of my drug intake.  The antibiotic has been augmented by some sort of diuretic pill that seems to be having no effect whatsoever. 

I am relieved that there is some sort of diagnosis and I shall expect my pills to work within a day or two.  Even though a two-week (one three times a day) stint of antibiotics is longer and more serious than I expected.

The new regime of offensively healthy eating started (and probably finished) this evening with a melange of vegetables and barrage of complaints from the carnivore!

I only seem to have an appetite at night at the moment.  I wonder if that makes me sound alluringly vampiric! 

Perhaps not.