On drab winter days Mr G cheers himself up with memories of his summer ramblings, which this year included an August outing to the Glyndebourne opera festival.He relished the tea room (top notch), the restaurant (spiffing), and the glorious gardens with their artful air of laid-back carelessness that belies year-round labour.
In fact he enjoyed every aspect apart from the music.
The opera was Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, in a production that had the reviewers salivating as they dished up the superlatives.
In the past, Mr G has throughly enjoyed the epic, surprisingly tuneful journey of Herr W's Ring Cycle (sounds like something from Hotpoint?), which comprises buckets of human interest and quite a few laughs along the way.
Tristan is, by contrast, a chuckle-free zone - and a massively long sit-down. The few passages of gorgeous music are separated by hours of doomy musings by the desperately un-engaging eponymous lovers. 'Oh, get on with it!' Mr G was tempted to mutter.
Worst of all for cheery, positive thinker Mr Gnome, the show is saturated in negativity: death, doom and desperation are its key themes.
Mr G hopes to return to Glyndebourne one day - possibly for an invigorating dose of Puccini....
For Mr G's video experiment, go to archive and check his very first post....
No comments:
Post a Comment