We're going to the opera tomorrow night. Madame Butterfly. Never been to the opera in London before. It's all part of Dearest's health and culture ministry. Entrenous, I'm having difficulty keeping up. By the time I've washed out. ... Sorry, let's be clear here, thoroughly bio-washed to utterly destroy the three million mitochondria proliferating in his yoga pants ( yes, you read that article too?) he's found something else we really must see/hear/do. Two days ago it was Beethoven's Ninth at the Proms. Gotta go! I have to be honest. I'm having difficulty keeping up here. And I'm not entirely convinced that I need to hear a piece of music that I know so well I could probably hum along with it. But heigh ho, I'm keeping schtum, now and on the night, which is probably unusually wise of me.
The first time we went to the opera was to see La Boheme in Vienna. Long, but beautiful journey by train. Much anguishing beforehand about dress code. Two different changes of outfit before we left for the Opera House in good time.
When we arrived at this magnificent building, it was puzzlingly bereft of theatre goers at five minutes past seven. We'd arrived feeling pleased with ourselves as we had avoided the usual white knuckle ride to events, trains, ferries and parents' evenings that have shaped our lives and wrinkled our arteries. It very soon became apparent that we (me) had misread the tickets and it started at 7.00 not 7.30. We were ushered four floors up in a small lift (one of us is not good in lifts) to a viewing room with a large television screen to join.... all the other naughty people who had also got it wrong. So there we sat, feeling absolutely awful while Dearest mutters to me, "The only bloody song I know from this and I'm watching it on the telly.."
Then, just as we were settling in for second best, it became clear that we had to race downstairs to deposit our coats in the cloakroom, and enter the auditorium during an interval.
"There is to be very fine timing in this:we have to move quickly," we were told in impeccable English that held more than a hint of "You English clots. What were you thinking of?"
So Dearest says, "I'll take the stairs," as I queued to take the very small lift. I thought I'd not see him again this side of the interval, but was calm, as I had the tickets. Amazingly, we were reunited in the cloakroom where we flung off our coats and followed the theatre staff who, by now, in the frenzy of the moment, had abandoned English niceties and were waving their arms, urgently hissing "Schnell schnell!"
Now, I read all my brother's Eagle comics when he was young. So my basic German, gleaned from them meant, Gott im Himmel, I understood that we had to move pretty damn fast here.
We stood at the side doors to the auditorium: one usher on either side, holding each door like waiters hovering with silver cloches over plated food. This was going to happen simultaneously, at the given moment, or not at all. The doors opened. The lights went up. Tumultuous applause met our arrival. We bowed graciously. No we didn't. We snuck into our seats, grateful for the interval. An opportunity to cool down, because my hyperventilation would surely have ruined the next Act.
Apart from that unseemly entrance, our introduction to opera was absolutely exquisite.
I'm planning to give Madame Butterfly slightly more breathing space....
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