I met Bernard at Pinner Station. Unusually he arrived late. We skipped back onto the train he had come in on. He wanted to take his normal route to Covent Garden which involved changing at Baker Street to the Bakerloo Line and then changing again at Piccadilly Circus onto the the Piccadilly Line to Covent Garden.
We arrived at the Opera House to find the main doors shut and had to enter via a side section in order to take the stairs up to our restaurant on the top floor. I suggested we walk a bit further but he had a slight temper tantrum by banging his stick on the ground to show his annoyance. I guess I implied that he wasn’t fit enough to climb the stairs. He also wanted to take the route up that he has always taken. Whatever the motive it didn’t show him in the best light.
We arrived at the restaurant to be greeted by this boy who had dressed himself to the hilt with make-up and a George Michael hairstyle. At first I wasn’t sure if he was male or female. We had a small glass of wine and one course each. Bernard wanted to check that we both ordered a course of the same value so we could split the bill evenly. He however had paid for the tickets and I didn’t reimburse him for that. I need to pay for the next set of coffees when we go out.
I chose a vegetarian dish of aubergines with different sauces. It tasted OK but nothing marvellous, but then I wasn’t expecting too much. Bernard picked at his meal of lamb and expressed his disappointment at the value of his meal and indicated he wouldn’t come back again.
After eating we wandered into the bar area to watch the people mill about and look down on the expensive bar and restaurant below.
Bernard like to enter the amphitheatre almost as soon as it opens so we sat down before most people had finished their drinks or food and waited. The auditorium slowly filled up until it became full.
The Don Quixote opera by Ludwig Minkus is short on story and long on chorus dancing. The tale that we are presented with starts with Don Quixote dreaming of the ideal girl and then setting off on his adventure to find her. He encounters the heroine, Kitri who loves the hero, Basilo (a barber). He believes she is his ideal woman. Kiltri is admonished by her father for loving Basilo and tries to impose the local bigwig onto her. Meanwhile Don Quixote also tries to woe the girl.
The loving couple escape to the country where they encounter a band of actors and gypsies, Don Quixote has his famous tilt at the windmills completes the second act. In the third act the loving couple are given their father’s blessing to marry and all ends happily ever after.
Much of the music Bernard described as oomph pa with no dramatic significance. It seems that the purpose of the music is purely to allow the many group dances to be performed with a party for the townsfolk, the gypsies or the travelling actors. There are a few slow movements that are more interesting but I came away disappointed with the musical content.
The first class dancing and musicianship do make up for some of the weakness of the composition but overall I came away disappointed with the evenings entertainment. Bernard described our seats as the ‘slips’. It meant we didn’t have a full view of the stage. In fact we lost about a third of the stage and unfortunately most of the action took place in this area.
Although the seats are much cheaper here in the slips, it doesn’t seem to me to make sense to me to an opera or ballet and not be able to see what’s going on.
I took charge of our return journey. I had to inform Bernard that he could go his way I would go mine. He acquiesced to accompany me. We simply took the Piccadilly Line north to Kings Cross, up the elevator to and down a few steps and we arrived at the Metropolitan Line. We picked up an Uxbridge train to Finchley Road and here a minute or two later arrived a train for Rickmansworth. All very simple and very little walking. Bernard agreed at last that this journey was much simpler and easier.