Tales from London # 38-42

Hello everyone! Sorry about the long interval between posts, it's been a very busy week, as always.

Monday

Today, we split up in the morning and went our own ways for Holly, Will, and Jon to buy tickets to Wicked, and for me to get a few errands done. I went to the British Museum as well, which was really, really crowded, but was full of a lot of interesting artifacts. It was a actually really disturbing how garishly the many, many sarcophagi were displayed in the Egyptian section. I definitely was not very happy with the way that the museum tried to make a solemn tradition surrounding death into a tourist attraction. Moreover, the Japan section was closed!
After that, I walked over to Chinatown to buy some more ingredients to make Zaru Soba soon. After wandering around for a fairly long time exploring, I went back to the room to meet the rest of the gang. After making some dinner, I went to choir rehearsal, which is starting to get really close to the performance and is thus heartily scaring me.

Tuesday

Unfortunately, today was Holiday's final day in London! We went out to breakfast in the morning at a pub, for an authentic English breakfast (for those who don't know, it consists of sausage, bacon, eggs, toast, baked beans, and sauteed mushrooms). We had a nice conversation, and then had to say our goodbyes. It was a short time that she was here, but a fun one!
After that, we went off to Westminster Abbey for a tour. It was truly an amazing place; unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside, but here is one of the outside:



Ok, 2. Can you blame me?
The inside was similarly large and beautiful. Every nook and cranny is filled with graves, memorials, and tombs. Among the people represented are queens and kings, Winston Churchill, poets, scientists, and basically every important person in British history. Of course, the best part was the musicians. Purcell, Britten, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Handel all were memorialized somehow in the abbey.

Afterwards, we went home for a quick dinner, and then went off to Duncinane, a play written as a sort of sequel to Macbeth. The writing was, despite the setting, very modern and easy to understand. Moreover, being by the same author as Midsummer, the dialogue was extremely funny and entertaining. The story was about England's army being stuck in Scotland trying to keep the peace, which they made abundantly clear was symbolic of a certain war that Britain is taking part in currently...
Political undertones aside, the play was probably my favorite I've seen so far in London. The actors were great, and I loved the way the stage was set up. David Greig (the author) is definitely a wonderful modern playwright, and clearly very diverse as well.

Wednesday

Today, we had class all day, including watching the movie "Brassed Off" for Music History. We also had to act out scenes from a very dramatic play for Theatre.
After that, we went to the Royal Opera House to see Cosi fan Tutte. It was set in modern times, with an extremely bland set (as in literally everything on stage besides the people was beige). This definitely did not add to the intrigue of the plot (I would have much rather seen a period performance), but the musical performances by the singers made up for the boring setting. I was swept away in Mozart's music for the whole 3 hours.

Thursday

Today, we had class for basically 6.5 hours straight, which was absolutely exhausting!
Afterwards, we made Zaru Soba for dinner, which is a Japanese cold buckwheat noodle dish. It was absolutely delicious, and reminded me of home and Japan both!
Then, we went to the Coliseum to see the English National Opera do a performance of Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. The ENO does everything in English, which was interesting, but convenient in listening to the music. The show itself was incredible! The music was dramatic, and chilling, with a glass harmonica playing off of the mad cries of Lucia as she becomes insane. The singer who played Lucia had a gorgeous voice, with an incredible range and touch for hitting notes just the right way. The staging was also very interesting, with lots of old photographs showing up in different places. eventually as headstones in a graveyard.

Friday

Today, after music theory, I went and bought a ticket to see Handel's Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall on Good Friday, which is one of the most exciting concerts coming up! Then, I went and bought a ticket for the early performance of Avenue Q in the West End.
The show was really good, an extremely sardonic parody of Sesame Street, only with more mature themes. It portrays real life with the same cheesy music and puppets that are used to teach children, which is absolutely hilarious. I knew the music beforehand, so I expected many of the jokes, but the staging made many of the jokes much funnier than I originally thought they were. Also, a few of the jokes were changed for the British version (they had to throw in a dig on the French), which was very interesting to see.

Well, I think that's about all I have in me right now!
Cheers,
Ethan

Tales #31-34

Monday
Today, I worked for my internship all day, typing up memos, contacting soloists, and other professional sorts of things. It was surprisingly tiring...I think I am getting too used to going to concerts and the like!
After that, I got some Japanese fast food (Onigiri and edamame, so not unhealthy like Amurrican fast food), and went to choir rehearsal. The Beethoven piece we are doing is really dramatic and fun to sing, although it is still killing my voice while I haven't quite recovered from my illness...

Tuesday
Today, I went to class all day, in a weird schedule switch up so that tomorrow we could go to Cirque du Soleil! We learned about Cosi fan Tutte, the Mozart opera that we are going to next week, and I am really excited for. After that, we made homemade fried chicken and mashed potatoes with sauteed mushrooms in them, which was amazing.
In the evening, we made some tortellini, and then went to the Oscar Wilde play "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime" at the Richmond Theatre. The play was funny (it is Oscar Wilde), but definitely not his or the actors' best work... There was really strange (read:out of key) musical accompaniment, which made the play unnecessarily cheesy. The set was pretty cool, and overall I was certainly entertained by the play, but not blown away.

Wednesday

Today, we woke up late, and went off to the Royal Opera House for our Back Stage Tour!!! We got to see the main hall while they were setting up for one of the ballets, as well as a practice room for ballet, the prop loft, the back stage area (which is measured in acres), and bunches of other really cool places around the building. It was very exciting.
Next, we went off to Cirque du Soleil: Varekai at the Royal Albert Hall. It was incredible, and nerve racking, to watch. Many of the artists were doing incredibly dangerous stunts, which was scary. They basically flew around the room, unsupported by harness or other safety equipment, doing acrobatic stunts all along. The story was not comprehensible at all (apparently due to changes in the act), but the incredibleness of the stunts made up for the lack of a plot.
After that, I went to a performance by the London Philharmonic Orchestra of French Impressionist music by Ravel, Poulenc, and Debussy. Although it was a little bit difficult to get into the music near the end due to the splendor of the day so far, I was still very impressed by the orchestra and conductor, and loved hearing more Ravel. Debussy's "La Mer" was also a very beautiful piece.

Thursday

Today, we held a huge debate on the abolition of the monarchy in British society, in which the people in favor of maintaining the monarchy (including me) surprisingly, though narrowly, won the vote of conscience at the end of the class.
For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant for cheap pizza. Little did we know, however, the cheap pizza came at the price of having to listen to Celine Dion, Shakira, and an Italian cover of "House of the Rising Sun" throughout dinner! It was a little scary, but we made it out alive.
After that, we split ways, and I went to the Southbank Centre to see the Philharmonia Orchestra do Mahler's 2nd symphony. It was absolute enormous, with a 170 member choir on top of the already sizable orchestra (which had a separate brass and percussion section playing entirely off stage, out of sight). This piece, like the other I saw at the beginning of the trip, was a hugely emotional piece, with many ups and downs, and interesting movements. I have come to the conclusion that I have really underestimated Mahler to this point in my life, and will have to continue to remedy my lack of exposure to his music.
Cheers

Tales #18-22

Tuesday

Sorry it's been so long since I updated this blog!
Today was a great day! After theater class in the morning (where we walked around in the cold for 3 hours!), we made burritos, which were probably the best burritos ever made. Seriously.
After that, I went to my audition for the City of London Choir. It only lasted 5 minutes, and was actually not too bad. The sight reading was really hard, because it was a tempo, with words, without time to look over it first! It ended up going fine anyways though, and I made it in!
After the audition, I walked over to the Royal Opera house to see "The Rake's Progress" by Igor Stravinsky. The opera was very good; the singers were definitely very talented (although Tom Rakewell (the main character) had a little bit of an abrasive voice in my opinion) and the venue was absolutely beautiful! It is enormous, and clad throughout in red and gold; it feels like an opera house in Mozart's day might have felt. It was extremely classy, and all around just an amazing place. As for the opera itself, it was very interesting. Both the storyline and the music hearkened back to the Classical and Baroque eras; the plot was a tragic story of the demise of a man who became a popular movie star. The music, on the other hand, felt like Stravinsky had taken a classical opera and moved 1/3 of the notes around, so it didn't comply to common practice rules. It had the typical harpsichord recitatives. The singing (its rhythm and melody both) was the one part that was more typical of Stravinsky than the orchestral music.

Wednesday

This afternoon, we went to Tate Britain for our British Art class.

Our professor took us on a tour of the history of British Art. Although much of the painting was very good, it did seem as though the British were on the later, and watered down (no pun intended) side of nearly every major trend in art. The only major exception to that rule was the gallery that featured art by Joseph Turner. His art was incredibly varied, from detailed and moving scenes of naval battles, to vague, hazy paintings of various buildings and cities. Though much of his art was "difficult" (read: you can't tell what he painted unless you read the blurb), it was clear that he was a very talented artist.
After that, I went out to dinner with Isabel, who is in town visiting for a week or so. We had fish and chips, which were delicious. It was awesome to see a familiar face!

Thursday

Today was a long day of class. British culture was typically interesting and entertaining, and music history was not that bad. After dinner, we went over to Kings Place to see various players from the Aurora Orchestra perform chamber arrangements of pieces with the theme "From Vienna to Weimar". The composers played were Hindemith, Weill, Krenek, and Schoenberg. The 3 besides Weill (who wrote the Threepenny Opera) were very modern pieces, with various levels of atonality. The Hindemith piece and the Schoenberg piece were my two favorites of the night. The Weill was selections from the Threepenny Opera played on violin with piano accompaniment, and several of the pieces were uncomfortably arranged/played. The musicians were all very good though, and they were all extremely young.

Friday

Today, I worked on my internship in the morning, and then went to Music Theory class. In the afternoon, we went around to Southbank and the the Barbican to buy tickets for upcoming performances. In the evening, a group of us met up with Isabel and went to a Japanese restaurant called "Hare and Tortoise" that we had seen walking around the town. It was incredibly good. I got a ramen noodle soup with salmon, crab, shrimp, scallop, and a mussel in it for 6.50 (which is amazing by London standards!). Everyone else also got really good food, and nothing was above 7 pounds.

Saturday

Today I wasn't feeling very well, so I took it (relatively) easy. I slept in for a while since I didn't sleep well the night before, and then got up and went to the Victoria and Albert museum.

It was so huge, and has a bunch of really cool sculptures. There are a lot of rooms that are filled with relics of the British Imperial era, which is a little off putting, but most of the stuff is really cool. I had nowhere near enough time or patience to make it through the whole museum, but I did get to see some really old harpsichords from th 1500's that were very well kept.
After this, I went over to the Barbican for a concert by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. They played Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, which is a dark piece written for a man who came back from World War I with only his left arm. They also did pieces by Webern, Zimmerman, a Burleske by Strauss, and Ravel's La Valse. The last two were particularly good. Strauss's piece played off of the interaction between the piano and the orchestra very well. Ravel's waltz was more an exaggerated expression (almost a parody) of how frustrated he had become with the romantic, cheezy standards that were common in the waltz.