After a quick, affordable (£10.95 for two courses, what’s not to like about that?), pre-theatre meal at Browns ( and you all know, when at London Pride, Alistair Appleton chooses to eat at Browns), Paul, Mark, Damien, Claire and I trotted off up Long Acre to the Royal Opera House to see Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’.
After the initial disappointment of hearing that Katie Van Kooten (oops that should be Nuccia Focile ) was unwell and was to be replaced by the Kiwi Anna Leese as Musetta, we settled in for the emotional roller-coaster ride that is ‘La Boheme’. And it was a cracker. Poverty, love, deception, self-medication and billiards, it had the lot.
Incidentally, there’s nothing like being typecast, the kiwi’s role (Musetta) was a tart in act one, then a drunken tart in act two. You can take the girl out of New Zealand……
We didn’t know when we booked (Or even up until last week, we’re not opera buffs), that one of the world's top tenors, Marcelo Alvarez, was to sing the role of Rodolfo. He was superb, even from the more affordable seats at top of the upper amphitheatre. In the heat of the moment after the performance, I gave it a 9.5, but now in the sober, cold light of day, I’d give it a 9.2.
Going to the Royal Opera House is a pretty amazing experience – the floral hall is breathtakingly beautiful, and as there were two intervals, we braved the plumes of passive smoke and took in the amazing view from the garrett terrace over the roofs of Covent Garden and to London beyond.
The crowd was very middle class and a bit snooty, with the odd theatre gay standing around – every now and then some 50-yo man in a tight (designer) t-shirt would walk past with a 30-something and I’d say to Damien ‘Do you think he’s gay?’. ‘Who can say?’ would be his reply.
I’ve been meaning to post some other ‘reviews’ of a couple of things we’ve been to see recently:
‘Bent’ starring Alan Cumming at the Trafalgar Studios theatre in Whitehall. Paul, Mark from London, Mark from Amsterdam, Marcus (any more Marks/Marcs?) and I decided on the spur of the moment to see this, as Mark was over from Amsterdam, and wanted some cultcha. It was pretty grim stuff, about a gay man in a concentration camp during the WWII. I enjoyed it and there were some very powerful scenes, but I felt the second half suffered from a certain mawkishness (more a result of the writing than the acting). Alan Cumming and Chris New(!) were excellent in the lead roles. I’d give it 7.4/10
Movies: ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ - It was hard not to be seduced by the glamour and glossiness of TDWP. Meryl Streep was excellent (no surprise there then) and Anne Hathaway is very beautiful in it. Our excitement level rose because our friend Cressida is an editor at the New Yorker and so we visited the Conde Nast building and ate in the $30 million Gehry-designed canteen last year. And funnily enough, Paris looked beautiful - they even showed Maxims (rolls eyes). Fine as a piece of light entertainment, 7.5/10.‘Little Miss Sunshine’ – this was ok, but I never managed to shrug off the feeling that the move was trying too hard to be quirky. I don’t like movies that spend the whole night saying ‘Look at me, aren’t I a quirky little movie?’. Toni Collete was good, the other performances were good, but as Damien said ‘it lacked teeth’. 7.7/10Labels: Covent Garden, Movies, Opera, Puccini, theatre, west end
