A Royal Day

A Royal Day, Tuesday, 3/14. [photo: satisfied customer at the Pie House.] We took it a bit easier today. First we bussed back to Greenwich for a midday concert in the Naval College chapel by the Trinity College of Music. They played some ‘Water Music’ by Telemann and Haydn’s ‘Midi’ symphony. The sound was very good; the curved ceiling makes for excellent acoustics. The playing was good, but on this day we could feel we are pretty spoiled by having the USC (and UCLA) music schools in Los Angeles.

We then had a farewell lunch at Goddard’s Pie House. Alice now says she has eaten enough steak-and-kidney and is looking forward to a good high tea.

After a couple of hours at the flat we were off again to snatch cheap theater tickets. We were disappointed to find that our target play (“Honour” starring Diana Rigg) did not offer ‘concessions’, and we read the playbill which described the play as “devastating”. Somehow we had thought it was a comedy. Anyway, we decided to go up the street to the Royal Opera House and try them. Although the official playlist for the house says that half-price tickets are available 4 hours before the performance, my request for ‘anything for two impoverished senior citizens’ was met with a smile and no discounts. Then I said that Romeo and Juliet was playing all over town (there is a symphonic performance scheduled for Friday) and he said, “But this is the Royal Ballet…” Game over. He had a few singles, a few standing room, and we paid full pop for the only pair of seats remaining, two in the Stalls Circle. Overall ticket prices for the ballet are a bit less than the LA Opera; these were good if not great, and considering all the guidebooks warn that the Royal is the most expensive show in town, we felt pretty lucky.

The ballet itself was very well done. They had a terrific Juliet (Alina Cojocaru) and a very good Romeo (Johan Kobberg). We do not keep up with the ballet world – perhaps these are famous names. They ought to be. The corps de ballet was excellent, the secondary dancers were excellent, the orchestra was competent except for the trumpet section which could have made a blooper highlight tape from this night alone. Also, most people hear this music played by a full symphony; it’s a bit of a letdown that you can’t fit that many players into the pit, so it always sounds a bit thin. Still beautiful, though, and the dancing of Romeo and Juliet was very very good.

Housekeeping note: we checked our heavy coats. Afterwards the reclaiming of coats most closely resembled a Japanese subway train at rush hour. It was bleeping unbelievable the number of people trying to get in and then out of the cloakroom area. Dignified gentlemen in $2000 suits pushing and shoving like colonials, and little old ladies pushing right back at them. All done politely, of course, but not for the claustrophobic.

Before the performance we were looking at the coming attractions and saw that on Thursday the Royal Opera will be doing Eugene Onegin with Dimitri Hvorostovsky. I hot-footed it through the incoming crowds to the box office and this time there were, according to them, only two tickets left in the whole house, partially obstructed in the balcony. It is opening night. I grabbed them.