Life is so frelling swell
I have been so enjoying my Saturday nights off. * Last night partly because the guest post was about music and partly because I’ve made a fresh start on Just a Little Thing for Organ ** and partly because I’m going to see Peter Grimes tomorrow at the ENO***, which is getting spectacular reviews† I did a little cruising around the web on the subject of opera, and booked a ticket for the ENO’s The Turn of the Screw†† this autumn. This is a revival of the production from 2007 which I wanted to go to but it had a very short run and I was in the midst of having lost my nerve about the hellhounds, whose digestion was by then clearly peculiar beyond the usual elastic bounds of puppy- and young-dog-hood. I’ve spent the last year and a half berating myself for missing it, however, so I greeted the discovery of its return in the ENO’s latest catalogue with rough, untuneful cries of delight. Having dared so far††† I belatedly thought of Grange Park Opera which is here in Hampshire for pity’s sake ‡ and why they didn’t buy the ENO’s mailing list–which would have included me–at the start-up is one of those mysteries of life, like the thought processes of hellhounds. I’ve been trying to remember for over a decade to get myself dragged into their official ken. ‡‡ Last night, knowing it was again too late–the season starts the beginning of June–I took a cruise past their web site to have a look at what I wasn’t going to be seeing there this year. And they’re doing Norma, which I love, and which I think I’ve never seen fully staged. Of course it’s all sold out. Whoops–nope–not quite. There’s one ticket left for 1 July–in the front row!–
–So I bought it.‡‡‡ It has to be a good omen, right?
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, I’ve been feeling just a trifle odd, off and on, the last few days. Not enough to take notice of, especially when I feel a trifle odd a lot of the time anyway.§
Last night I had a terrible night and woke up at 7 am out of really repulsive nightmares to be violently ill. Various other things ensued. I went back to bed with my little bottle of homeopathic Ars Alb and took one every ten or fifteen minutes for about an hour, till the worst of the tumult subsided, and fell asleep again §§ like falling into deep water. §§§ I woke up briefly at about 9 to hear them ringing three, groaned, put a pillow over my head, and sank back into the deep water.
Ordinary heroism includes getting hellhounds walked on days like today.¤ I missed the fete altogether–and didn’t dare take my muffins round to the church hall for the teas, in case whatever is wrong with me is contagious. Morale is not high.
But I am going to Peter Grimes tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
* * *
* And Jeanne Marie’s from last night has made me cry with laughter (and admiration) each of the several times I’ve read it. What I want to know is, what is it about performing music that is so paralysing? I’m absolutely one of those people who goes to pieces when there’s music involved . . . well, you regular readers know that: I can’t even play the piano for Oisin, who has a truly astonishing gift for appearing small, meek and harmless, especially astonishing in a fellow well over six feet tall with a razor-sharp sense of humour about almost everything except student lkkmklm,.okp;,l,^ . . .um, music.^^ I can give speeches! I can run seminars! I can do Q&A sessions!^^^ I don’t like it, but I can do it. But show me a keyboard and my eyes, brain and fingers go all funny. In my case anyway I suspect it’s to do with the brain and fingers part of it: the fact that there’s fine motor control involved. When the adrenaline starts flooding the system I do well not to fall off the dais.^^^^
^ Pardon me. That’s Chaos, hanging off my arm. Somebody explain to me why hellhounds, unlike normal predators, get very active after meals, and want to tear around the house leaping over pieces of furniture that don’t scuttle out of the way fast enough, and ripping up tennis balls, especially when there’s a human hand involved.+ It might have something to do with the fact that they don’t eat their meals. Apparently food in a bowl is very exciting however.
+ OW.
^^ There is an argument that I’ve gone down the composing route because it’s an aid to avoiding playing.
^^^ And, what’s even more thrilling, I haven’t murdered anyone.
^^^^ Actually no, I don’t think I ever have.+ I have done other things however.
+ Unless someone out there who attended some one of my lectures the memory of which is so appalling I’ve suppressed it can tell me otherwise. I’d really rather you kept it to yourself however.
** A trifle the way Heracles tried again with the hydra after lopping the first few heads off. I however do not have a helpful nephew with a flaming brand to call upon.
*** http://www.eno.org/whats-on/whats-on.php?id=1318
† http://www.musicomh.com/opera/eno-grimes_0509.htm for example, or http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/17/opera-review-peter-grimes-coliseum
which calls it ‘unmissable’.
†† http://www.eno.org/whats-on/whats-on.php?id=1377
††† I really hate booking so far ahead. Who knows what November is going to look like? But I suspect it may sell out, and furthermore I am one of those tiresome thinks-she’s-arty people who isn’t interested in going at all if I can’t get a good seat.
‡ http://www.grangeparkopera.co.uk/#
‡‡ Very, very slightly in my defense, when they were just starting out their schedules were all old war horses with young untried casts and I don’t really want to see another Marriage of Figaro or Carmen unless it’s likely to make my hair stand on end. And then I forgot. It’s been a very full decade.
‡‡‡ If there’d been two tickets I’d've been tempted to tow Peter along. As it is we’re both happy: I get to go, and Peter gets to stay home.^
^ I’ve just been back to check and to my deep disgust there are six tickets–again in the front row+–showing for the 18th of June. I don’t know if I somehow didn’t notice or whether my computer or their web site was having its little joke. However, my ticket-die is cast, and the rest of the run is sold out.
+ I’m not crazy about staring at the back of the conductor’s head either, but I don’t mind the front row.
§ Between writing fantasy for a living and having ME (and hellhounds), there’s not a lot of hope for normalcy
§§ To dreams of putting my house in order. Who needs Freud?
§§§ Or possibly off a dais.
¤ I mean this, and if it sounds like bragging, I don’t care. But what haunts me is a situation like a dependent single mother with young children–and ME, which can be guaranteed to sit on you particularly hard if you’re already feeling rocky from some other cause. The last thing you need when you have one of these spoon-stealers riding you is to have to buck a lot of systems, like the NHS and whatever council department(s) in your area is/are responsible for keeping you housed and stipended, all of whom are likely to have a good go at trying to pretend you’re malingering. And while keeping your kids clean and healthy and amused. At least the hellhounds sleep a lot, and the need to teach them manners doesn’t categorically stretch a lot farther than not peeing in the house and not biting anyone but me.
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