Blown away by the Tempest

I get up around seven thirty and let Normy into the garden and then put on the kettle and make coffee and breakfast. It's cloudy but mild outside and forecast to brighten up later. I share my full English breakfast with Norman and then read the Guardian while drinking the rest of my coffee, before showering and dressing. Saturday is wash day, so after separating the whites from the coloureds, I put the former on to wash before loading Normy into the car for our trip to Beverley to meet friends for coffee at the Poppy Seed Cafe. We park in our usual place down Norwood and walk into town, the cloud has broken and the sun is shining. We walk past Alice's school, Beverley Girls High, the leaves from the trees rustling under our feet and giving off a sweet cider smell. We are first to the cafe, I take Norman's towel out of my bag, dry his paws and belly and then sit him on my knee. My drink arrives, and we watch the world go past for ten minutes until Hannah arrives, Felicity can't make it today, as she had an exhausting time at the hospital yesterday and needs to rest up. She doesn't feel up to the Tempest from the Met tonight either, but Hannah buys her ticket. Jill arrives next and then Annie and her daughter, Sarah, who lives in Liverpool. They have seen John Prescott campaigning to be the new Police Commissioner, apparently Tony Blair was in Hull yesterday, hitting the phones on his behalf. Despite usually being a labour supporter, I am not inclined to vote for Prescott, because I think he is better at campaigning than he is at running things, at least based on his performance in office. There is a lively discussion about the pros and cons of elected Police Commissioners, with the balance of consensus on greater democratic accountability for the police being a positive move. The police are a bit of a law unto themselves, as things stand. We leave around a quarter to twelve and make our way home through the market, which is as busy as ever. Once home I have much to do, the whites are hung out on the hope that they dry and the coloureds put on to wash. I run the vacuum cleaner through the house and then over the inside of the car, in order to clear away a week's dog walking dirt. Fortunately most of it has been caught by the throw hung over the back seat. When the inside is clean, I drive to the garage and spend a fiver putting the car through the automated wash, arriving back home for half past two. I filet a pork chop, before beating it flat and coating it with breadcrumbs to make schnitzel, stick some chips in the oven and make a tossed salad, while they cook. Norman has the bone and the remains of the egg, while I eat my lunch and a glass of Chardonnay helps it down. Then, while the oven is still hot, I roll the last of my pastry from the fridge and line four ramekins, before filling them, with pasta sauce, sundried tomatoes, mozarella and olives. As they bake, I listen to Hull City away at Cardiff, they are third and we lie fourth in the championship and the positions will be reversed if we beat them. My pizza pasties are ready by half time and I set them to cool, before feeding Norman and taking him for a walk as far as the farm. I am picking Hannah and co up from the car park by Felicity's house on Albert Terrace at a quarter past five and need to see to my dog before leaving the house. Norman is comfortable with his routine and performs his duty and then plays "praise and pat", all the way home. Hull are well beaten, 2:1 in Cardiff, but the pasties, which I had intended to take to the opera, are still too hot to pack, they will make a supper after I get back later. I park opposite Fliss's house, just after five and pop in to see her for ten minutes before picking up the others. She is eating tea and looks tired, her anthology of poems has arrived and she has promised one for me, which I shall collect later. Hannah, Gill and Silvia are waiting by the car when I leave Felicity and fifteen minutes later we have arrived at Kingswood and are seated in the auditorium. A friend from the running club, Rob Byass, is there with his new wife, he tells me they are expecting a baby in January. Rob is a quiet spoken, quite shy farmer, who also makes exquisite silverware in his spare time. His wife seems another quiet, gentle soul and so they are well suited. The opera is conducted by the composer, Thomas Ades, and he is interviewed along with the librettist, Meredith Oakes and the Director, Robert LePage, as part of the introduction to the work. The opera itself is different, the music dissonant and disconcerting, the libretto replacing Shakespeare's iambic pentameter, with Oakes' rhyming couplets. This both structures and limits the work, as well as making it extremely challenging. After act one I was struggling more than a little, as the dissonance is unrelieved by harmony or much melody, although the dramatic effect is both moving and profound. Operating on the basis that new art is nearly always challenging, I suspended judgement until the end of the opera, in effect giving it the benefit of the doubt. By the end of act two my ears had adjusted and by the conclusion I realised that it gave great dramatic satisfaction. The opera, like the play, is complex and multi layered, its intellectuality challenges a rethink about what we think, we think about both Shakespeare and opera. It is at the same time both disturbing and satisfying, with Wagnerian echoes. A lot of people won't cope with its demands and enjoyment from the piece arises from the realisation that something about it has resonated somewhere inside. A little like the appreciation of an oyster, once one has mastered the courage to swallow it whole. Needless to say it received very mixed reviews amongst the audience. Our little group split down the middle, Hannah and Jill hated it, whilst Silvia and I liked it. I have this suspicion that it will bubble along in my unconscious for days, weeks or even months. A true mind worm. Thank you Thomas (H)Ades!