By this time, I had narrowed my classes down to the three mentioned above. All still very interesting. 'Nuff about that!
After class, and despite the fact that I was still pretty tired and dragged out, I decided to bite the bullet and head down to London for the evening to see Il barbiere di Siviglia the at the Royal Opera House. The production starred star Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez and star American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. I had planned on catching this one at some point while over here, but after I read that Ms. DiDonato would be performing in a wheelchair as a result of breaking her leg the performance before, I just had to see it that night. I rang up the box office, snagged myself a ticket, and I was off to the train station.
Usually the trip from Cambridge to London is 45 mins on a train that is non-stop. Just my luck, the train before mine that stopped at like 8 stops on its way to London was canceled, making MY train the train that was to stop at EVERY station along the way. I was not impressed. What made matters worse, in my rush to leave, I forgot my iPod and didn't have time to eat lunch. And on top of that, the girl in from of me talked on her cell phone the ENTIRE journey. Her voice was one of those 20-something nasally brit chic voices. So grating. Apparently she had missed her train and was going to be 5 mins late for work, so she felt the need to tell every single contact in her phone about it. And about how her boyfriend isn't the best person it the world but he tries. "We all have our faults," she opines. Some more than others,my dear. The old man who sat next to me for the last half of the 1.5 hour trip smelled of mothballs so strongly that I had to cover my nose with my scarf. Than god for that scarf.
So I finally get there,my stomach eating itself, and it's freezing and pouring rain. It seems whenever I'm in London in the summer, it has the biggest rainfall its had in 20 years. They said the same thing last year. This time it closed one of the tube lines. Typ. So anyway, it's raining and cold, but no matter cause what do my weary eyes see?!?! Yep, you guessed it; the golden arches!! I was so happy I could cry. So after eating and crying tears of joy, I headed to Covent Garden, where the Royal Opera House is. It's a beautiful house on the inside, not very grand on the outside. On the way, I stopped off to get some water and some Smarties for the show. I NEVER wanna be stuck hungry in England ever again.
My seat in the theatre is pretty high up, but no biggie. It was still perfect, as I had a full view of the stage and the acoustics were great. The show started a few minutes late because Ms. DiDonato had JUST received her wheelchair minutes before and, instead of being pushed around it in, she wanted to do it on her own. Good decision. The performance was absolutely amazing. Even without the wheelchair story, the production, with its all-star cast, has been receiving rave reviews. The wheelchair seemed to enhance the camp comedic aspect of the show, and Ms. DiDonato later said that being so confined helped her to further explore and bring out those same feelings felt by the character of Rosina as she tries to break free from her unpleasant situation. It definitely worked. After "Una voce poco fa", Rosina's big aria in Act I, the audience went nuts giving DiDonato what felt like a 5 minute ovation. Both she and Juan Diego Florez blew me away with their voices. So much power and so perfect, technically. It gave me chills, and made the headache getting there (and back!!) well worth it.
They both got a very long ovation in the middle of Act II. (Click on the pics for much bigger ones.)
The curtain calls were lovely and exciting. This is Juan Diego Florez.
Joyce DiDonato wheeling herself onstage for her curtain call.
Enjoying her much-deserved ovation.
I rushed out right after to try to make the 11:15 train back to Cambridge from Kings Cross. After running through the tube station and the train station likeone of those people we all roll our eyes at, I finally made it, with only a minute to spare. I was lucky...or so I thought...
In England they do this thing where they perform maintenance on train tracks and subway lines during times of minimal use, like on evenings and weekends (what about the tourists??). The worst part about it is there's no advance warning. One learns about it as it's happening. This is what happened to me. I thought I was quickly and quietly on my way back to Cambridge...not so. I would have to get off at Hitchin (????) then take a waiting bus to Cambridge. If you thought a the bus would go directly to Cambridge, as I did, you'd be mistaken. It proceeded to drive to every single train station that the train had stopped at on the way to London. Every one. Can you imagine how long that took!?!? I finally got home around 2am, feeling car-sick and very hungry. Everything in Cambridge closes at around 6pm so I was worried I'd be sick and hungry til the shops opened in the morning. Thank god there was a "chips" stand (or as Shari calls them, "fry wagons") in the Market Square. Again I was eating and crying tears of joy. I finally made it up to my room and promptly went to bed. Great night overall.
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