Culture Calls!

 

 

 

A laconic message on my phone saying that 8.00 am swimming tomorrow is cancelled.  No explanation.

     Is later swimming OK?  If people have booked later sessions, are they still available?  I could of course phone up and ask, but that seems far too simple a process, while there is fruitless speculation to tempt!

     And lie-ins are not an enjoyable prospect for me.  As I get up at 5.45 am each day for my 6.30 am swim, the fact that I have to stay in bed until 7.15 am on the weekends because of the later starts, is something of a trial, as my body clock is set to get me to rise earlier.  The extra time ‘gained’ in bed is lost to me as I struggle to stay rested and prone.

     And we have just had yet another mobile phone warning about inclement weather for tonight until the early hours – though I do not think that is a factor in the cancellation of the swim tomorrow.  Possibly.

 

Instead, I will concentrate on the performance that I am going to see tomorrow in the Liceu, the first production of the season, and starting with a Grand Opera Blockbuster – Aida!  And this will be the first of the productions that will have a specially produced individual programme just for me – a touch of tautology there, but worth it to emphasise the special nature of the publication.

     Aida is one of those operas that I have seen umpteen times, but I still consider it one that I do not know in the way that I would like to.  Obviously, I can hum along with the famous bits, but the totality of the experience has always eluded me.

     Sometimes it takes a particular performance or perhaps a truly inventive staging of the production to bring an opera firmly into my personal repertoire.   

     Seeing the dress rehearsal of Eugene Onegin in an 1980 WNO production conducted by Mark Ermler with Josephine Barstow and Tom Allen, with sets by Michael Yeargan and directed Andrei Serban, took an opera I had never heard before and made it an immediate part of my world.  I still remember the real corn stalks in the opening scenes, the floating window for Tatyana’s dream, and the gleaming white carpet for the final duel in the snow!

     Or an equally arresting production, which I again first saw in a dress rehearsal, of WNO’s 1978 production The Makropulos Case, with astonishing sets designed by Maria Björnson, the production directed by David Poutney and conducted by Richard Armstrong, with Elizabeth Söderström as Makropulos.  Once seen, so known; and what some might regard as a difficult opera to take to on a first hearing, rapidly became the opera that I have probably heard and seen the most!

     It is when I remember productions like these that I think of what might be my Perfect Opera Season of a dozen or so productions. 

     Here are the first six that came to mind, in no particular order:

 

The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny – Brecht/Weill

Four Saints in Three Acts – Virgil Thomson

Akhnaten – Philip Glass

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Benjamin Britten

La Boheme – Giacomo Puccini

 

When I feel strong enough, I might attempt to draw up the other six candidates for inclusion!

 

 

Mucus misery!

Digital waves

I refuse to believe, point blank, that I can possibly have a cold.  I neither want one nor, I believe, am I scheduled for one as I took my anti-flu jab like a good little boy and that should give me protection until the next one.

            I prefer to believe that I am suffering from hay fever.  This is a fairly recent development in my approach to health and an obvious reaction to some sort of pollen found only in Castelldefels.  A few pills take the pain away.  Well, at least the runny eyes and nose and the fairly cataclysmic sneezes – at least when I buy the pills it might!  Tomorrow.

            I also put down to hay fever my forgetfulness at leaving my watch at home as I set out on my epic bike ride to my equally impressive swim.  This was particularly ironic, as I had made a Herculean effort and remembered to consult the web site of my smart watch app to find out which of the four buttons I should press and in what order to get the most out of my swim!

            In theory, each of my swims should be beamed to the web site where it will be ranked and various statistics (which of course I will ignore, but it’s nice to have them to ignore) will be automatically produced for my delectation.

            All of this is rather like another app I have called, oddly, ‘misfit’, which tells me how many steps I have taken and how much sleep I have had.  Also, disturbingly, it tells me how much ‘deep’ sleep I had.  How the hell does my watch know that?  And why, over the last two days has it only told me of the sleep that I had, completely ignoring its depth?  I truly am not in control of my apps.  But I live to learn, so it is only a matter of time before I finally crack them.

Credit and gain

I know that I should be considering the culture that I saw on Saturday when, with Suzanne I went to the Museu del Disseny de Barcelona in Pl de les Glóries Catalanes in Barcelona to see Design for life: 99 Projects for the real world and to find out what was going on at the Open Day for the Poblenou Urban District.  But I’m not.  I’m thinking instead of the rather wonderful glass that Kate and Steve gave me when I left after an evening of talk and drink!

            My mother’s training runs deep in me.  Her fascination with glass, crockery and cutlery means that now I find it difficult to pass by a well-designed piece of any of these when I see them.  It is this ingrained attitude which explains my delight when my wine was served in a very stylish glass and my enthusiasm must have been very (indeed embarrassingly) obvious.  Again, going back to my mother, I shudder to think of her opinion of my behaviour!

            However, it is a fine glass: a cup-like bowl on a chunky long stem with a circular foot.  The glass bowl has a lop sided, bubble filled slew of glass which gives it a slightly retro Swedish ‘80s look.  I do hope that Steve remembers where he bought the others (he originally had eight) because I would be interested in buying others to make up a set. 

My mother is always round about!

Eventually

After a wearingly long period of failure, I have finally managed to make some sort of poetic sense of some of my past notes in the notebook.  I am depressingly aware of how much material is waiting for me to make something out of it, but I fear that the OU is taking precedence at the moment.  And rightly so!

            The last poem, the draft of which is available for view and comment at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/ the title of the poem is Lessons? And it uses some of the ideas which have informed a few of my other recent poems.  I wonder if I have given enough information in the poem as it is written.  Something to think about.

Defining purchases!

One of my more inspired purchases was of an illuminated toilet seat.  It was bought from Lidls and had a seaside theme with real shells and one starfish set in the clear plastic lid.  When the lid was raised light appeared in the seat!  It didn’t cost that much and it was a thing of wonder.

            That ‘it didn’t cost that much’ should have alerted me to the fleeting life of the thing.  First the light failed to work and then it broke.  I repaired it and it broke again.

            My latest purchase replacement is more expensive and is plain white and somewhat sturdier.  But boring.  But wait – what happens if you go into the bathroom in the dark?  A sensor immediately illuminates two small blue lights on each side of the seat!  And it works because I have tested it, stumbling into the bathroom to be greeted by an oddly azure glow!  Never a dull moment.