Water-sprites
Jun. 7th, 2009 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adaezeWent to Covent Garden yesterday for Royal Ballet in Ondine. Lovely ballet - not one I'd ever seen before. Wasn't quite how I expected it - I'd assumed it would be a fairly conventional, romantic-style ballet, but it was much darker and edgier. Nice shipwreck in Act II - waves sloshing up and down backstage, music managed to sound so much like water I wondered if they were playing a tape of actual wave sounds somewhere in the background, and everyone on stage except Ondine herself swaying from side to side in time with both the music and the background waves - chap behind me complained about feeling seasick. Act III was set up as a classic fairytale ending Grande Finale with post-wedding Divertimenti. Except hints that all isn't quite well - more edgy music, the bridegroom dreaming of his lost fairy bride and clearly getting second thoughts about the flesh-and-blood wife, then the outraged fairy (Ondine's uncle) turns up, trashes the entire place and drowns bride & as far as I could make out all the guests as well. Carabosse never had it so good!
Met a couple of Northfarthing regulars (Operabuff and exSecretary, for want of better names for them) also in the audience, and had a good catch-up.
Other news, saw Meglorien and Foradan on Friday, and met Narizinho for the first time - cute baby, good at smiling, very happy to be passed over to a total stranger for cuddling, has mastered the art of throwing the rattle on the floor and watching grown-ups pick it up. Great fun!
And I went home to Bedfordshire on Wednesday to keep the place looking orderly. There was a lot of tidying up to be done in the front garden, which had been re-designed by a passing motorist a few days earlier. He'd come off the road shortly after coming round the corner, skidded across a few of the other front gardens and ended up crashing into, and demolishing, the small fir tree on our plot, before coming to a stop just short of our wall. The tree in question had been sheared off so neatly it looked as though it had been cut down deliberately - not ripped or torn at all. I dread to think what speed he must have been doing to have that effect! The chap who's buying has according to our next door neighbour already been round to inspect the damage, and told her he'd been planning to take it out anyway. The people in the car got away with shock, so no real harm done - but if the tree hadn't been there (we'd previously decided to cut it down as it was growing too big for such a tiny plot, but lacked round tuits) it would probably have been a very nasty accident indeed.
Met a couple of Northfarthing regulars (Operabuff and exSecretary, for want of better names for them) also in the audience, and had a good catch-up.
Other news, saw Meglorien and Foradan on Friday, and met Narizinho for the first time - cute baby, good at smiling, very happy to be passed over to a total stranger for cuddling, has mastered the art of throwing the rattle on the floor and watching grown-ups pick it up. Great fun!
And I went home to Bedfordshire on Wednesday to keep the place looking orderly. There was a lot of tidying up to be done in the front garden, which had been re-designed by a passing motorist a few days earlier. He'd come off the road shortly after coming round the corner, skidded across a few of the other front gardens and ended up crashing into, and demolishing, the small fir tree on our plot, before coming to a stop just short of our wall. The tree in question had been sheared off so neatly it looked as though it had been cut down deliberately - not ripped or torn at all. I dread to think what speed he must have been doing to have that effect! The chap who's buying has according to our next door neighbour already been round to inspect the damage, and told her he'd been planning to take it out anyway. The people in the car got away with shock, so no real harm done - but if the tree hadn't been there (we'd previously decided to cut it down as it was growing too big for such a tiny plot, but lacked round tuits) it would probably have been a very nasty accident indeed.
