Fidelio

Friday Shaun left to start a journey through Europe ending in Croatia. We will all miss him as he is so good with the kids. He wants to do teaching. Caught the X90 to Oxford and was at the Sheldonian theatre early so heard some of the rehearsal. The conductor expected the men there at 3 p.m. but called us early so some drifted in "late". Still all went well and the idea of getting the prisoners to enter through the big double doors worked really well. Had a nice tea with David and Anthea. Mark Griffiths was outstanding as chorus master. This is the most wonderful music expressive of liberty, love and freedom. I remember so well the Orange performance 30 years ago. Liz was expecting Dennis and there were various mishaps - coach crash, soprano flat on back for the whole fortnight, Nella broke her wrist. The producer really pulled it out of us and we saw the film 10 years after it was made which was very moving as several had passed on. Zubin Mehta conducted the Israel Philharmonic and their cellos got left in the sun at the airport and were damaged. Gundula Janowitz and Jon Vickers - fabulous. We were on stage for hours - pros would have walked off. We sang every verse of "On Ilkley moor ba tat" in that dungeon. Yao from Singapore (we tried to contact him when in Singapore - he conducts their chorus) carried me across the stage - we were supposed to have been beaten about by the guards who included some Foreign legion! Ron got knocked and said "I saw stars, I definitely saw stars". We have a video of the rehearsals - the soldiers were hilarious.
The soloists last night were outstanding and really held it together. I was an hour at the bus stop as the first X90 was full. How I wish I had come on the Oxford tube. Still I got to Victoria in time for the last train to Selhurst and Liz picked me up, bless her!