On my way down to Brighton this time I didn’t think it through. There was no time to go home after pretending to be a goose. I was already in Beaconsfield so it just made so much more sense to go straight to Brighton on a Friday night. But I had no bag packed. In my car was a hat, a black velvet jacket and a jumper with more holes in it than the plot of a cheap romance novel. I stopped at my old staple, TK Maxx. Socks, pants and a couple of T-shirts. Thanks to a dozy assistant the pants weren’t rung through so I am now the proud owner of a box of extremely brief Calvin Kleins. I rather like them. I feel like Dolph Lungdren.
Lou doesn’t like the jacket which is fair enough – I last wore it at a funeral. The jumper though… I thought it was on its last legs. Cashmere but so worn and worn in with washing that the front had four holes in it. “Let me darn that,” she said, and two people I’ve run into since then have said “You look smart!” She’s a miracle worker. It only took her a few minutes and the thing has a new lease of life.
We drove to her workshop briefly, loaded up with picnic, and then on to Carmen at Glyndebourne. I think his might be my eighth different show there in two years. It’s the final dress rehearsal most of the time but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Those gorgeous gardens wake up in the summer, and the whole place is steeped in the bright energy that can only come when so many creative people come together in one place and channel the thing they channel through their bodies and voices. On stage eighty odd dancers and singers working together to tell a strange tale.
A less traditional take on Carmen, and even if I miss the joy of the huge flamenco flounce and the real period twinkles, by bringing it into a slightly seedier and more grounded world it made the interplay between characters ring out in a way it might have have done had I been distracted by petticoats. Manipulative Carmen surrounded by people worse than she is. Beautiful familiar tunes. English people pretending to be French people pretending to be Spanish people. My mum loved this opera. I remember her once telling me the story of it. It was huge and romantic in her memory. This telling of it doesn’t lose the epic sense of a big world, but reminds us that the things that feel vast to us personally don’t transfer very far from the inside of our heads. Not a huge romance of an ending. An unnecessary idiocy played out in a big world. Powerful storytelling and world building. I drove home happy.
Back to the grind now until the end of the week. I’m picking out dinner jackets to wear for an MC gig on Friday. Got to send options to the client. Man in dinner jacket is just that, no? Heigh ho.
AlBarclay 