Opera / Utopia
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2003 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth A cold evening, Tuesday 1st July 2003. We're in a park at the foot of London's tallest building -- Number 1 Canada Place, a.k.a. Canary Wharf -- watching the 291st Royal Opera House production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (coincidentally the first opera I ever saw live, back in 1990 or 1991 at the ENO). Tamino is sung by an American; the Queen of the Night by a Romanian; the conductor is so French as to be a caricature; and Papagena is a young Irish soprano who's just won Cardiff Singer of the Year award. It's a live relay from the Opera House, via BT [British Telecom] satellite, on screens provided by BP [British Petroleum]. Earlier, we were treated to a brief pep talk by the management [Canary Wharf Ltd, spelt 'Warf' on the subtitling] and a dance display by a local girls' gymnastic team.
Carluccio's is doing a roaring trade in takeaway chocolate gloop and hot coffee (all hail![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladymoonray, guardian angel). We drink pink drink (rosé cava) and snack on smoked salmon and strawberries. Downstairs, in the (ahem) mall, there are clean, hi-tech toilet facilities.
The square, while not jammed solid like Covent Garden Piazza outside the Opera House itself, is packed, despite the wind-tunnel effect of the complex and the occasional splattering of rain. A helicopter circles overhead at the beginning of Act Two. The landing lights of aeroplanes (heading for City Airport, a few miles east) are reflected in the windows around the park.
It's the most modern setting imaginable for a production in which the special effects are deliberately 18th-century. The giant serpent of the opening scene is visibly carried by stagehands; but Sarastro, returning from the hunt, carries a live falcon on his wrist. (It doesn't seem distressed by the lights, music, cast). The costumes are lavish, the singing world-class, the sound astonishingly good. And it's free.
I think I'm living in the future. For many writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, I suspect, this would be Utopia.
Carluccio's is doing a roaring trade in takeaway chocolate gloop and hot coffee (all hail
ladymoonray, guardian angel). We drink pink drink (rosé cava) and snack on smoked salmon and strawberries. Downstairs, in the (ahem) mall, there are clean, hi-tech toilet facilities. The square, while not jammed solid like Covent Garden Piazza outside the Opera House itself, is packed, despite the wind-tunnel effect of the complex and the occasional splattering of rain. A helicopter circles overhead at the beginning of Act Two. The landing lights of aeroplanes (heading for City Airport, a few miles east) are reflected in the windows around the park.
It's the most modern setting imaginable for a production in which the special effects are deliberately 18th-century. The giant serpent of the opening scene is visibly carried by stagehands; but Sarastro, returning from the hunt, carries a live falcon on his wrist. (It doesn't seem distressed by the lights, music, cast). The costumes are lavish, the singing world-class, the sound astonishingly good. And it's free.
I think I'm living in the future. For many writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, I suspect, this would be Utopia.
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no subject
Date: Wednesday, July 2nd, 2003 05:23 pm (UTC):¬)
Damn - I wish I'd known, tho' CG would be easier for me...