Hansel and Gretel at the Royal Opera House

It's amazing how long you can live in London and never go to the things that visitors to London think are really important. I suppose I'd always thought that the Royal Opera House was Not For the Likes Of Me, but curiosity got the better of me and after a jolly lunch party at Big Bruv's, me and the Offsprogs +2 sat on a soggy 172 bus and went through the glamorous portals of the enormous building that hides between streets in Covent Garden. Of course, you walk past a shop first, which isn't very impressive, and then through a bar area which also isn't very impressive, but the deeper into the building you get, and the higher you find yourself, the more twinkly and ornate it becomes. We were up in the gods, which being goddesses was completely appropriate, so found our way up to the 5th floor where we had a spectacular view over the original entrance. Some opera-goers were dressed up proper posh, but others like us made do with Best Clothes and felt just as important. 

The vertigo-inducing height was daunting at first but we managed to plaster ourselves against the seats and had a very good view, if rather reminiscent of seeing the Abba show where the 'band' were absolutely tiny. What the production lacked in swanky staging (that has to be the world's most disappointing gingerbread house!), it more than made up for in musical prowess and accessibility. The orchestra was exquisitely rehearsed- you could see the bows of the string instruments in perfect synch with not only each other but also the conductor's baton. As far as I know, there was no amplification: those voices had to carry across the orchestra and way up to us in the gods. Most of the songs were recognisably songs, and I particularly liked the gingerbread children who came on and sang their parts in normal street voices, thus showing up the greater artifice of admittedly beautiful operatic singing. As an opera it's very much skewed towards soprano singing, and the male voices were very welcome when they appeared.

What an interesting evening! Offsprog Two gets tickets for a tenner that are held back until the last minute. I'm going to go again, definitely. There was so much to be inspired by- even the two singers singing against each other, which is what me and Gina will be doing on Saturday at our Beefheart Musical not-a-musical!