Another crummy day during which I
had the delightful experience of conducting my daily swim to the accompaniment
of the extended drum roll of rain on the retractable roof of the pool together
with the vision of water cascading down the glass walls.
Making the most of the weather I
paused on the sea front on my return, parked the car and took photos of the
larger than usual waves. And just as
usual my final pictures failed to show the majesty of a breaking wall of
water. Part of that failure, I have to
admit, is that the waves (even during turbulent weather conditions) are well
short of anything approaching majestic and I hesitated before I took off my
sandals and paddled in a way to make the most of the proximity! (Just in case there was any ambiguity in that
last sentence, I did not take my
sandals off, it was cold wet and miserable and I had no intention of
intensifying any of those adjectives!) I
was also trying to bring a large umbrella under control at the same time during
a struggle of wills between a brisk wind and the hand that was not holding the
camera, well, the phone. One day, I will
take a picture of the waves of which I will be proud. In the same way that on another ‘one day’ I
will take a decent photo of the firework displays that we have on the
beach. One day. But not one day today.
This week is going to be a short
week for Toni as he has Thursday and Friday ‘off’. These two days link to the weekend to make a four-day
holiday Puente (bridge) to be
enjoyed. What this means in effect is that
for four days all the menus in all the restaurants in Castelldefels will be at Fiesta & Fin de Semana prices, that
are substantially higher than for an ordinary weekday.
Today is All Souls Eve and there
is, I am glad to say, a selection of traditional food that should be eaten on
All Souls or All Saints Day, or on any period of time near enough to qualify. We have been invited to Terrassa to eat our
fill of chestnuts, sweet potato and small marzipan cakes or panellets. Over the past week or so there has been a
chestnut seller in the centre of town doing a brisk trade. Although we haven’t bought any of them, the
rich smell as you pass the brazier is available for free!
For kids of my age (!) roast chestnuts bring
back memories of Johnny Morris (born in Newport in Wales!) in black and white
on the BBC!
I have also, apropos of nothing
that I have written above, been listening to part of my birthday present: a nine-disc
set of the operas of Janacek in preparation for a performance of Katya Kabanova
next month – which starts, of course, tomorrow!
Time is, as always, speeding up.
I did not listen to Katya first as my favourite opera by
Janacek is The Makropulos Case. This is the opera, as I never tire telling
people, I have seen the most in live performance. Given the number of years that I have been
going to the opera you would have thought that by now one of the biggies in the
opera world like Tosca, or Madame Butterfly would have overtaken my
viewings of what is, still, a fairly obscure opera. But no, it remains paramount in my experience
thanks mostly to WNO’s trailblazing 1978 performances with Elizabeth Soderstrom
singing Emilia Marty, conducted by Richard Armstrong, directed by David
Pountney, with designs by Maria Björnson – a production I saw wherever WNO
played it. And, over the years I have
augmented these initial viewings with others when I could get to them! I am still waiting for a production of Makropulos by the Liceu, but Katya will do in the meantime!
And talking of that performance,
it is astonishing what you do not see if you either don’t want to see it or
have assumed something other than the reality that is printed in black and
white in front of you.
I have a season ticket for the
opera in the Liceu and, with the addition of an odd ballet and recital, I get
to see all the major opera productions of the season. Or, at least that was what I thought, and my
request for the CDs (ah, I am a traditionalist at heart and I like to have
‘hard’ copy as it were) was to bring myself up to speed with the music so that I
could fully relish the performance. And
then I realized that a ticket for this performance was not included in my
package! How could I have missed this? I am sent an individualised calendar giving
me the dates for all of the performances during the season. And Katya
was not among them! There was a moment
of panic before reality reasserted itself and I reasoned that Janacek is still
not given the credit that he deserves in pushing the limits of opera and that
selling the seats would always be a problem.
And sure enough, when I phoned the box office, I was able to get ‘my’
usual seat (row 10 on the aisle) for a performance on the 20th of
next month.
So, apart from a single nasty
moment, the situation has now been rectified (by the injection of cash) and I
will be able to see the opera. But the
‘oversight’ did make me think. This was
one of the operas that I was looking forward to seeing and still I managed not
to pick up on the fact that it was not part of the package. Admittedly my season ticket is automatically
renewed unless I stop it, so I do not have to search through the Byzantine
complexity of what package is right for me, but still, I saw the list of operas
and Katya was not on it. How?
And it really does make one think
about what else one has assumed to be that is simply not. The good thing about that thought however is
that obliviousness dampens fear. I will
not know what it is that I have not know about until I find that I do not
know. So to speak. Perhaps I am just one of those people who
assume that something or other will happen to make me question something in
just enough time to ensure that disaster does not strike. Well, that is my ‘saving lie’ and I am
sticking to it!
And, by the way, the sun has just
come out!
