A Night at the Opera

No... this posting isn't about the classic Marx Brothers film, or the equally classic Queen album. On Valentines night Ana and I spent a very enjoyable night at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury watching the marvellous Chişinău National Opera's production of Verdi's "Aida".

This was the second opera that we have attended together, the first being Puccini's "Madama Butterfly". The stage production was very impressive, the set was lavish, the singers loud and very professional sounding. Ancient Egypt was certainly brought to life and quite realistically as well. In my humble opinion it was money well spent, even if we were at the very back of the theatre.

Now I wouldn't say that I am an opera convert as I don't think I would put on a CD of this particular opera, but to see it performed live is an experience that everyone can and probably should enjoy. "Aida" doesn't have many of the popular opera pieces that you often hear on the classical radio stations or CD compilations, but the story is nevertheless operatic and yes, you've guessed it, ends with... well, I won't give it away but there isn't a big twist at the end. The story of slave princess Aida follows the standard opera theme of lovers divided by society, jealousy, betrayal and the inevitable demise of the protaganists; Sophocles couldn't have written a better tragedic outcome.

So all in all I'd say if you get the chance to see a production of "Aida" then you'd be foolish to turn it down - you never know, you might actually enjoy yourself just as I did.

The 2007 Quiz Season has started again

First of all let me give a big greeting to anyone who has been keeping an eye on my blog and wondered if I had been abducted by aliens. I have to say that I haven't, but I also haven't felt much in the way of inspiration for writing recently; all that is about to change.

So let's kick things off with a posting about quizzes, as Ana and I seem to be lined up to go to a few in the next couple of months, culminating in the KM Big Quiz in which our team, "The Quizlings", came a respectable 11th out of 60 odd teams last year.

Last weekend we went to a "warm-up" quiz at Graveney Village Hall. The teams comprised of mainly the over 50s, with questions to match. Mostly the questions were fairly easy with the odd brain bender in there, but all teams generally scored 9 or 10 on each round. Consequently it was a close fought contest but our knowledge of 1940s and 1950s acronyms and shopkeeper phrases let us down. Who knows what a costamonger is? I just couldn't remember it's the old word for a fruit seller! We managed a reasonably respectable 4th(ish) place our of 9 and went away happy with our performance. I don't think we could have done any better; we certainly weren't kicking ourselves over the answers we missed.

The highlight of the evening eventually turned out to be our good friend Neil winning not 1 but 4 prizes in the cheesey raffle. None of the prizes were cheese in the literal sense of the word, that would have been preferable. He went away happy though with a good stock of presents to give at future christmases and birthdays.

The next quiz event is in a week. The great Canterbury Christ Church University Staff Association Wine and Wisdom evening. We've put together a crack team and will hopefully get a top 3 finish, maybe even first if we play our joker right. Adding to the interest of the evening is getting to meet the new girlfriend of that perennial layabout Chris. How he managed to land himself a girlfriend in the first place is beyond me, and perhaps I'm not too interested to find out.

I'll be sure to let everyone know how we perform on the night. I predict at least a top 5 place, which will be an improvememt on last year. The only real dilemma we have at the moment is what to call our team!