Miscellaneous doings

Haven’t really felt sufficiently worked up to write about anything specific recently, so here’s some random recent news…

First of all, say hello to our new housemates…

This is Merry and Pippin (yes, Nicola is a huge LOTR fan). Merry is the black one and, unlike the hobbit namesake, is female. We’d been intending to get a cat or two for years, but always seemed to think seriously about it when we had an imminent holiday planned, so kept putting it off. We’ve been a bit more organised this year. They’re about 14 weeks old and lots of fun, although it’s going to be better if we can train their body clocks out of the current habit of chasing each other round the bedroom at 2am :/

Last Saturday, I went to an opera. My first ever opera!

I have to admit that, despite my efforts to be broad-minded about all music and not dismiss entire genres out of hand, I simply don’t like opera. It’s not for want of trying, either. I’ve mentioned before that I have a long-term project on the go, whereby I’m using “musical downtime” to gradually listen my way through the entire history of classical music, filling the gaps that my rather scattered listening habits have left untouched. I’m up to the late romantics now (having started by delving into the earliest medieval plainchant back in late 2004) so I’ve heard a few bits of opera, and it still just doesn’t do it for me.

Or rather, I don’t really get on with the operas of Mozart and the various Italians from the “golden age” of the mid-nineteenth century, but I did find a couple of pleasant surprises from further back in musical history. I absolutely love Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” (from 1607, one of the very earliest operas) and Purcell’s short and tuneful “Dido and Aeneas” (1689). I saw the latter at the weekend, performed in a small Anglo-Catholic church by the Clemens non Papa consort. And it was fun! Far less of the excessive vibrato and shrieking soprano gymnastics of the 19th century operas, and all in English!

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4 Responses to Miscellaneous doings

  1. Two operas for me…the first, Rigoletto, was absolutely stunning!!! I was left awestuck with jaw utterly dropped – the theatrics, the drama and the musciality of it all won me over completely!!!

    …or so I thought…then went to see Madame Butterfly and it was drabbest, sickliest, warbly bilge that I have ever seen.

    I guess, like in every other genre of music, for every Steely Dan there is a Kajagoogoo…and you only know if you like after you’ve tried it!

  2. IanM says:

    “it’s going to be better if we can train their body clocks out of the current habit of chasing each other round the bedroom at 2am :/”

    Yeah, good luck with that! They look nice and peaceful on that pic, but I suspect they’re a pair of hellraisers!

    Our two still chase each other around, but they’re 5 years old and weight around a stone each, so it’s not quiet!

    Ian

  3. Steve Dix says:

    You do realise that it’s par for the course for all UKMGans to post a comparative photo of each cat stretched out next to a standard-scale stratocaster, don’t you?

  4. I’m with you on the whole Opera question… I can’t get into it either. I remember studying Dido and Aeneas in A-Level music, but even then I couldn’t bring myself to want more exposure to the genre. Maybe in time something will creep into my consciousness and change my mind, but it hasn’t happened yet.

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