Iolanthe (8th August 2008)
Friday has got to be my favourite day of the working week - the day just goes by so quickly! It was my work colleague, Mindi's last day with us and a bunch of us headed over to The Malthouse after a few drinks at work. It was really sad to see Mindi go (and the female count in the team reduced) but we'll have to catch up for drinks outside of work from now on! I'm going to get the wheat beer again - I like it :)
Around 7pm, I started to make my way over to The Opera House to meet up with Claus. We had bought ourselves tickets ($51 each for a stall seat) to a comic fantasy opera titled Iolanthe by Gilbert & Sullivan. Haha, you must probably be thinking, these two are being classy or rich, going to see an opera - the real reason behind it was because our good friend, Rosel, is debuting in the opera, playing the role of Phyllis. I was actually called in for a last minute acting job by my agent but had to turn it down since I had promised Rosel that I'll be there to support her show. Besides, I've never been to an opera so it would be a first for me :)
The story about the opera in a nutshell is this: Iolanthe is a fairy and fell in love with a mortal and had a son, Strephon, a half-mortal half-fairy who is in love with beautiful Phyllis. Phyllis too is in love with Strephon and they were to be married, only to be forbidden by the Lord Chancellor because Strephon was deemed not suitable to Phyllis, and wanted Phyllis for himself. Strephon seeked the help of his fairy mother and fellow fairies, but because Phyllis didn't know of his magical being, she was mistaken when she saw Strephon embracing his mother, a woman who looked too young to be a mother (fairies don't age). The rest of the story is pretty much how the fairies got themselves involved in the court members, and how Strephon and Phyllis worked things out.
I think the whole show was about 2-3 hours with a 20-minute interval. I absolutely enjoyed the opera - it was funny (especially the Lord Chancellor who was a splitting image and character of Mr Bean) and when Rosel sang, I was totally mesmerised! I wondered if Claus could fully understand the opera since English is not his first language (even I had trouble understanding some of the context). The poor guy was moving in his seat so often - the seats were not very comfortable and for his long legs, the lack of space didn't help.
Stop, stop it Claus! Not sure exactly what he wanted - why does he keep whispering to me that he wants to go for a shower???? And then he goes poking my handbag to which I got annoyed and took it out of his reach. Seriously, Claus, you can't be suggesting we leave now! We hadn't even gone halfway through the show. Rosel will be so disappointed!! Turns out, what he wanted was a CHEWING GUM. We cracked up laughing during the interval when we realised the miscommunication - somehow the way he incorrectly pronounce 'chewing' (he pronounced the 'ch' as he would in Portuguese so it sounded like a 'sh') and whispering it to me made it sounded like 'showering'. Ok, ok, you can have a chewing gum :) And he actually thought I was being a meanie, not giving him the gum after several attempts asking for one! :P
Rosel, my love, will you civil me? Rosel and I have this ongoing joke that we'll have a civil union together since we were both single and deserve great loves so why not each other. And now that I'm so captivated by her voice and singing, I will have to propose to her! Need to 'steal' her from Strephon...hehe...
Claus being Claus, he's always up to mischief. He somehow found out that I was a ticklish person and started to tickle me while we were watching the opera. Stop it! The woman sitting next to me was giving us evil looks because I was fidgeting in my seat whenever Claus poked me! He also managed to convince the head usher to let us backstage so we could see Rosel after the show. It was so cool that the usher came to get us at the end of the show and led us through the back alley to see her. Congratulations Rosel - you were fabulous!
After the show, Claus and I hung out in town for a bit. Wasn't expecting to end up clubbing but we did and it was fun dancing with Claus. He's such a clown and we occasionally danced salsa to clubbing music (we must have looked so ridiculous dancing salsa to 80s music but who cares?). Oh, and I've never been to Maya Bar before until tonight. Gee, I obviously haven't been hitting the clubs much since most dance nights were spent at salsa venues. I like Maya - hip dance music that makes you want to shake and move plus it had laser light beams coming through the walls, giving it a rather trance-like, 'high' sort of ambience. Very interesting. I surprised even myself that I could actually move and groove to such a different music genre and environment WITHOUT a drop of alcohol to loosen me up! We danced till about 1am and called it a night. It was a fabulous night out - thanks for the great company Claus! We should do this again soon :)
Around 7pm, I started to make my way over to The Opera House to meet up with Claus. We had bought ourselves tickets ($51 each for a stall seat) to a comic fantasy opera titled Iolanthe by Gilbert & Sullivan. Haha, you must probably be thinking, these two are being classy or rich, going to see an opera - the real reason behind it was because our good friend, Rosel, is debuting in the opera, playing the role of Phyllis. I was actually called in for a last minute acting job by my agent but had to turn it down since I had promised Rosel that I'll be there to support her show. Besides, I've never been to an opera so it would be a first for me :)
The story about the opera in a nutshell is this: Iolanthe is a fairy and fell in love with a mortal and had a son, Strephon, a half-mortal half-fairy who is in love with beautiful Phyllis. Phyllis too is in love with Strephon and they were to be married, only to be forbidden by the Lord Chancellor because Strephon was deemed not suitable to Phyllis, and wanted Phyllis for himself. Strephon seeked the help of his fairy mother and fellow fairies, but because Phyllis didn't know of his magical being, she was mistaken when she saw Strephon embracing his mother, a woman who looked too young to be a mother (fairies don't age). The rest of the story is pretty much how the fairies got themselves involved in the court members, and how Strephon and Phyllis worked things out.
I think the whole show was about 2-3 hours with a 20-minute interval. I absolutely enjoyed the opera - it was funny (especially the Lord Chancellor who was a splitting image and character of Mr Bean) and when Rosel sang, I was totally mesmerised! I wondered if Claus could fully understand the opera since English is not his first language (even I had trouble understanding some of the context). The poor guy was moving in his seat so often - the seats were not very comfortable and for his long legs, the lack of space didn't help.
Stop, stop it Claus! Not sure exactly what he wanted - why does he keep whispering to me that he wants to go for a shower???? And then he goes poking my handbag to which I got annoyed and took it out of his reach. Seriously, Claus, you can't be suggesting we leave now! We hadn't even gone halfway through the show. Rosel will be so disappointed!! Turns out, what he wanted was a CHEWING GUM. We cracked up laughing during the interval when we realised the miscommunication - somehow the way he incorrectly pronounce 'chewing' (he pronounced the 'ch' as he would in Portuguese so it sounded like a 'sh') and whispering it to me made it sounded like 'showering'. Ok, ok, you can have a chewing gum :) And he actually thought I was being a meanie, not giving him the gum after several attempts asking for one! :P
Rosel, my love, will you civil me? Rosel and I have this ongoing joke that we'll have a civil union together since we were both single and deserve great loves so why not each other. And now that I'm so captivated by her voice and singing, I will have to propose to her! Need to 'steal' her from Strephon...hehe...
Claus being Claus, he's always up to mischief. He somehow found out that I was a ticklish person and started to tickle me while we were watching the opera. Stop it! The woman sitting next to me was giving us evil looks because I was fidgeting in my seat whenever Claus poked me! He also managed to convince the head usher to let us backstage so we could see Rosel after the show. It was so cool that the usher came to get us at the end of the show and led us through the back alley to see her. Congratulations Rosel - you were fabulous!
After the show, Claus and I hung out in town for a bit. Wasn't expecting to end up clubbing but we did and it was fun dancing with Claus. He's such a clown and we occasionally danced salsa to clubbing music (we must have looked so ridiculous dancing salsa to 80s music but who cares?). Oh, and I've never been to Maya Bar before until tonight. Gee, I obviously haven't been hitting the clubs much since most dance nights were spent at salsa venues. I like Maya - hip dance music that makes you want to shake and move plus it had laser light beams coming through the walls, giving it a rather trance-like, 'high' sort of ambience. Very interesting. I surprised even myself that I could actually move and groove to such a different music genre and environment WITHOUT a drop of alcohol to loosen me up! We danced till about 1am and called it a night. It was a fabulous night out - thanks for the great company Claus! We should do this again soon :)
Comments
Post a Comment