An opera re-visited

Yesterday, as I had some catching up to do at home and at the office, I first took Clare and our guests to Penarth so that they could walk the coastal path, returned and then spent the afternoon at work. This morning, was our first College Tutors' meeting of the year, but before I could get to it I had to take Clare to her eye clinic appointment straight after breakfast. Accessing the University Hospital of Wales campus at peak commuter traffic time meant queuing queuing, whichever way I went, but despite the congestion, I dropped her and made it to the meeting only five minutes late.

The big news of the day is of the screening on BBC2 of the first of a TV documentary series of four on student life at St Michael's on 15th October called 'Vicar Academy'. The structure of the series bears an uncanny resemblance to a TV soap opera, in the opinion of the Principal, Dr Peter Sedgewick - even so, no publicity is bad publicity, and who knows what interest and debate the series might spark off?

Our guests went into town on their own, and returned mid-afternoon, likewise Clare. Apart from being early for her appointment, she'd endured a long delay in being seen and more delay in waiting for additional eye scans to be performed. To be sure she got home on time, she sensibly took a taxi. I went off to St Mike's again at tea-time for this week's tutor group, of worship and bible study. A good session, followed by a quick departure, as we had tickets for the WNO's 'La boème' evening performance at the Millennium Centre.

It's the same production as we saw last season, once again superbly sung and visually it's a remarkable enhancement of the theatrical character of the story. Yet again, we loved it and more importantly our guests loved it. They go to lots of concerts back at home in the Rhine Valley region of Eastern Switzerland, but seldom go to opera, so it was a special evening for us all.
 

Home for the opera

The journey home started in mist and rain. The road past Trawsfynydd was closed, and we were obliged to take the road to Bala, past Llyn Celyn, the reservoir whose waters inundated Treweryn, disposessing its inhabitants back in the seventies. This outrage became a cause celebre of the Welsh language revival movement, and nationalist politics. Although this diversion added half an hour to the trip, we didn't much mind. The countryside is very beautiful. Further south, we saw even less of the scenery high up on Bwlch Oerdrws, going inland this time, but within thirty miles, the cloud broke up, the rain stopped and the sun poked through. It was quite warm and pleasant by the time we arrived in Cardiff. We weren't at all surprised to hear news stories of flooding in West and North Wales. A month's rain had fallen in the past 24 hours.

We were home early enough to relax, sort ourselves out, and eat a meal, and even prepare a sermon for tomorrow before going out for the evening to the Millennium Centre to hear the new WNO version of Puccini's 'La boème', one of our favourite operas. It was a remarkable production, with a minimal set hugely enhanced by the use of evocative video graphics projected on to the set backdrop. The singers were all superb, credible character actors as well. As the opera isn't too long, we came out and drove home in the light and colour of the setting sun. A lovely way to end the half term holiday week.