Tag Archives: Glyndebourne

Glyndebourne Inspired

I didn’t mean to write about what inspired me this week. But on Tuesday I went to Glyndebourne to hear Handel’s Rinaldo. And it’s rather put everything else out of my mind.

There was a sadness to this particular visit. The one person to whom I would have expected to pour out an account of the opera is no longer with us. As a result, I knew I was a little off my game.

Only, instead, my Glyndebourne visit gave me everything back, music, magic and memory. The whole nine yards. So I thought I would share. Continue reading →

Magic Moment and Creative Chaos

Mysterious woman in magic moment

I’ve always been fascinated by the chemistry of the magic moment and the creative chaos out of which it so often emerges in works of the imagination. And I mean always.

Long before I analysed A-Level texts or read any of the learned works on story structure, I knew there was a point in my favourite fantasies where time seemed to slow. Everything became both more meaningful and more mysterious.

They were the places in the book which I re-read, again and again. The moments I went back to in the CD. The words I waited for, breathless, in the theatre.

 Amid Nonsense

Continue reading →

Opera, Opera, Opera — My Month of Three Operas

Opera!  July 2015 was my month of three operas. Unless you’re Eric the Phantom (of the Opera), this probably sounds a touch excessive. It did to me, too, when I looked at the diary and saw what I had done.

But they were all just a touch odd. And very different.

Opera USP

Venetian masquerade carnival. Could be operaOpera overwhelms me. I laugh, I cry, I sit on the edge of my seat at the drama. And there’s always a chance I will be exalted into out-of-the body bliss by the beauty of the music. The sheer power of an orchestra and chorus going quiet is tingle-up-the-spine time. I find opera mysterious, dangerous, sometimes almost threatening. Continue reading →