Well, they certainly don't tolerate latecomers at the Royal Opera House! As I was showing my ticket, they were pulling a huge door across to bar the entrance. I just beat them to it.. and we agreed, in the lift all the way up to the amphitheatre, that lifts are a great and wonderful thing. Mind you, I was on my own for the last level.. that's how far up I was this time.
Not the very last row - actually, second from last. There were (some) people higher than I was. My bit had loose seats, which were very comfortable, and a railing in front of us, which was handy for leaning on, on occasion. There was a standing area on the other side of it, but we were elevated, so the standers' heads were at the level of our feet and didn't pose a problem. Much more of a problem was the extremely tall man, two rows further front, whose head was right in my line of sight, which meant that I had to spend the entire show leaning to one side, then the other, to try to get a view of the main singers. Apart from him, I had no problems with this seat.. I think the standing folks had a problem with him too; after a while, they disappeared somewhere else. I think there is some flexibility about where you stand, as long as it's in the same area.
The show was Simon Boccanegra, by Verdi. Packed house - when I booked, there were 11 tickets left in the whole place. Much better availability for subsequent shows, for some reason. I have seen a few Verdi operas in my time, never saw this one before. It has your traditional operatic drama, fraught confrontations, a completely unbelievable story, a tragic ending, and some terrific crowd scenes, which were the highlight for me. Overall, though, I get more from Aida. Won't be rushing back. But it was interesting. And the frequent scene changes were handy, given that I'm coming down with a throat infection all of a sudden and kept needing to find my Strepsils.
Wasn't until I was queueing to get into the Tube on the way back and saw some girls with maple-leaf sunglasses that I remembered it was Canada Day! Aww.. belated Happy Canada Day, to whom it may concern.
So, on Sunday I was thinking about what to do tomorrow (Tuesday) night, and Before Midnight came up again, so I checked to see where it was playing. Well, would you credit it, it's already (after one week) gone from the three cinemas closest to me! No demand, I guess. A damning indictment of the cinema-going public (gee, like we need another). So, the nearest place to me that it's on is Cineworld Hammersmith, and needs must - that's where I'll (finally) be seeing it tomorrow. At 6.10 - it's the only showing. And the last day they're showing it! I dunno.. Anyway, this means I can't use my voucher for it, because the voucher is for the Odeon. But not such a bad thing - the Odeon is quite expensive in comparison, and the price at Cineworld is less even than the voucher price at the Odeon.. and not using the voucher meant I could book in advance, and Cineworld gives a 10% discount if you do that - so I did, which is why, with any luck, I will finally get to see it. Ooh, and I'm quite excited for Thursday, because I got a ticket to Alexei Sayle. I love Alexei Sayle, and his run at the Soho Theatre sold out, so I didn't get to see him. He's currently playing the Southbank Centre, which is a lot larger.. so for Thursday, I'm centre block, second row from the front. :-) This is very cool..
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