A night at the opera...

To balance out the pretty awful version of Cabaret which I saw earlier in the week, I took daughter number two off to London yesterday to see her first opera.  Now I have seen a couple of operas over the years, but have never had any emotional connection with it unlike the ballet which I adore.  But you have to try these things and as I said to daughter number two over the phone this week, it is important to expand your horizons with something new.  Mind you, she's taking me to see Magic Mike XL (hoping that this is referring to the length of the show rather than anything else) so it works both ways I suppose.

The day went perfectly - we each got on the train from different directions and met at the Italian restaurant I'd booked next door to the theatre.  I know this isn't very adventurous, but as the husband is always telling me that he could turn me round three times and I wouldn't know where I was, I felt it better to err on the side of caution and keep any foot travel to an absolute minimum.

The restaurant was lovely, and we started with a couple of very giddy looking cocktails before sitting at our table.  After a couple of moments, the waiter appeared.   After some pleasantries in what sounded like a pseudo Italian accept (I'm no language expert, but there was definitely a whiff of Brentford tucked in there somewhere) he said, 'Are you aware of how we operate in this restaurant?'  

Well ladies, I was tempted to reel off..

'We sit down

You bring a menu

We look at menu

We order food

You bring food

We eat food

You bring bill

We pay bill

We leave...'

but instead, settled with a, 'No, it's our first time'.

So it was all as I thought, with the only difference being that the food was kind of brought out willy-nilly.  Oh, and there was a rather lovely bottle of red which daughter number two and I managed to neck back.

It was a good thing that the theatre was only next door really.  Any further, and I would have had to resort to getting there on all fours such was the speed that bottle of wine disappeared. As it was, we managed to find the tickets in daughter number two's cavernous bag, then find our seats, and sit back to enjoy the performance.

And do you know what, there was yet more male nudity.  Luckily, there was some very sensitive lighting from behind which left the gentleman's dignity semi intact (unlike Cabaret where he had a spotlight zoned in on his specifics), but none of this detracted from what was a wonderful afternoon.

I still can't say that I am a huge opera fan, but the final few minutes where the strumpet cops it had me sobbing like a child.  Mind you, these could have been tears of relief as daughter number two had informed me in the interval that you don't get to see everything (this said slowly and with much emphasis) at Magic Mike.

I'll let you know ladies...