02.10.06
A travesty
I went to London at the weekend. Time for me and K to have a little time together (a rare commodity at the moment). I wanted to go on Saturday and come back on a late bus that night but K’s suggestion was to find a cheap hotel and come back on Sunday. Normally I’d have agreed that was a good idea but K was working Sunday night so would have to sleep on the bus back. Hmmm? Not a great idea in my op.
The main reason besides a bit of time together was to see the English National Opera’s new staging of La Traviata, K’s all time favourite piece of classical music. I’m not the greatest fan of opera but I like this one and I’ve never been to see the ENO or indeed any proper opera house. We saw La Traviata in a church in Rome 18 months ago but this was to be altogether more professional.
The journey was fine and we ended up finding the hotel. We went for the “easyHotel” part of Stelios’ group of companies. Not impressed. The room was 3m by 2m with a decent whack of that taken up by the en-suite bit. The rest was a bed. No other furniture in the place so nowhere to put clothes or bags or whatever besides the floor. No room to turn around and for 2 people it wasn’t good. Cheapish though although a bus travelling back to Leicester would of been cheaper.
The opera house (The Coliseum) is an eye opener. It’s worth a trip in just to see the building inside. Gorgeous setting although we had the cheap seats and they were the most uncomfortable seats I’ve ever had the pleasure to be sat in for a long show since the old side benches at the City Variety in Leeds. Towards the end of the opera I was more worried about how much pain I was in rather than the sadness of the drama in front of me. (It’s opera, the main character dies; ooh what a surprise).
The setting of the piece was excellent with gorgeous stage work and the singers were generally world-class. Shame about the language though. If you didn’t know the ENO do translated operas so it was all in English rather than Italian (in this case). I hated that aspect of it. Despite being in English it also had surtitles. So why not sing it in Italian and run a translation on the screen? The words were jarring at times and didn’t fit the music half as well as the Italian does. Why change it? A bad idea. Next time I’ll go to the ROH and watch it the way God intended (well Verdi anyway).
The Sunday was spent walking around for a bit as we then had to go and get a bus back. Nothing much got done as we hadn’t the time. A waste of the day really although the walk was nice enough and we had some stunning food near Harrods.
Any road up. A nice Saturday’s entertainment followed by a chilled-ish day on Sunday.
As we’re talking about theatre shows; who’s up for a visit to Slava’s Snowshow? I saw this twice in London and loved it. Turns out it’s on in Birmingham soon. Any takers?
Have fun.
Rebecca said,
October 6, 2006 at 12:36 am
Hmmm, alright then, I’ll let you off. In case you hadn’t guessed (or checked the date/time stamp) I’m reading your blog-type entries in backwards chronological order (i.e. most recent first.) Naturally I was shocked and appalled to discover that you had been in London, but that I had not been given the opportunity of your company. (Even more surprised that you didn’t happen to mention this during the one and a half hour telephone conversation that we had together this evening! – Perhaps you had guessed my less than favourable response?) So, I wrote a “reply” to air my views.
Now I’ve read this article and discovered that you were only in London for a VERY short time, and that the whole point was that you and K could spend a bit of precious time together. So, I feel sorry for you both now, and have mellowed a little, and have decided to let you off just this once.
But just tell me next time you come to London! By the way, my breakfasts are very good, and my hospitality far more comfortable and affordable than that of Stelios, by the sound of things