We went to the Unicorn Theatre on London’s South Bank on Saturday to see ‘My Mother Told Me Not to Stare’, which was a production by Hullabaloo. The Hullabaloo is a company from the North of England who offer opera suitable for children.
The theatre was very little and it was full. The stage was very low because it was just the ground with lots of rocks on to make it interesting. I didn’t think it looked very exciting to begin with.
On the night of Saturday the 6th of February I went to the Brighton Dome to see the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing pieces by Jean Sibelius and Johannes Brahms. The pieces were all conducted by the famous conductor Osmo Vanska who was awarded first prize at the 1982 Besancon International young conductors' competition and is said to be the greatest Sibelius conductor of today.
The first piece was Sibelius's Tapiola, a beautiful piece that starts quite gently and then slowly gets louder and more fierce. It has a lovely introduction on the violins and a little way through the piece there is an pretty oboe solo. I really liked the beginning because it made me feel happy. It is a very mysterious piece with a lot of suspense and secrets.
I was really looking forward to the concert because I enjoy many pieces of Russian music.
The concert began confidently with Stravinsky’s Symphonies Of Wind Instruments. We were plunged into a Russia, both ancient and modern, welcomed by the brass and woodwind. The piece is twenty-four instruments (thirteen woodwind, four horns and seven brass). Broad, masculine and clean sound from the brass contrasted with sweet, whistling, alive textures from the flutes.
The concert began with “Danzas Fantásticas” by Joaquin Turina. I liked the percussion and the brass because they made an exciting sound.
I went to see “The Enchanted Pig” at the Linbury Theatre, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve never been to a musical or an opera. The nearest thing I’ve been to is a pantomime!
The director was called John Fulljames and the man who wrote the words to the songs was called Alasdair Middleton.
When I arrived at the Opera House I thought it was quite posh but I forgot about that when I went into the actual theatre. The stage set was amazing. It looked like a beautiful silver castle and the floor had circular sections that moved with the signs of the horoscope on it. The ceiling had planets hanging down and at the back there were three wedding dresses hanging up in the sky.
As I entered Manchester, I could not help to notice the big, beautiful glass building beside me, and this was where the pianist Freddy Kempf was to perform a piano recital. Inside the Bridgewater Hall was very modern, and the salon in which we seated was very admirable too. The evening was filled with Kempf’s performance of three great pianist composers’ pieces, which he performed with intense feeling and expression.
I went to Wuthering Heights ballet at the Alhambra theatre in Bradford; it was a beautiful building and very interesting to look at. Mainly all positives for this ballet. I could see from where I was sat, that most of the place was busy, however there were a few empty seats behind us. Although most of the audience were older people there were definitely more younger people than I expected at a ballet performance.
Before watching this ballet, I had never read or seen Wuthering Heights, so I didn’t know the story. So I was a bit sceptical of watching Wuthering Heights purely because sometimes ballets can be a bit boring because you don’t always get to understand the story well. With this ballet I found it very easy and enjoyable. The dancing and the acting of the dancers made it easy to follow the story.
The mood of the Britten was captured immediately by the strings creating a really haunting feeling. The arpeggios played by the harp are beautifully interacted with the long brass chords which follow – all credit to the CBSO there. But the first time in the piece of real power and force is when brass and percussion play at Fortissimo hits the audience, making us imagine a portrait of the sea and particularly a shipwreck. The diversity is put over with slides, glissandos from the brass and woodwind as well as well positioned crisp staccato notes which are sympathetically played.
I had visited the Royal Albert Hall on another occasion when I was much younger so I did not remember much what it looked like; therefore, when I gazed upon the colossal structure, even from afar it was astounding. I entered its doors and it immediately struck me that I had entered a place that resembled a labyrinth; if I had not known where I was going I would have surely gotten lost. As I was shown to my seat, I noticed that the hall could seat about seven thousand and there was a place at the front for watching the orchestra from a standing position.
As I approached the Royal Albert Hall, I noticed the beautiful architecture of the building. The experience of being there in London was amazing! I felt that I could learn a lot about the building itself just by looking at the stunning art work surrounding it.
During the first part of the concert the Scottish Chamber Orchestra played Pulcinella by Igor Stravinsky, The music being played made me feel relaxed and as if I was just focused on them playing, nothing else. Each piece I heard affected me in some sort of way. Some pieces made me feel happy and some pieces made me feel sad. I really liked the way that some pieces of music included a range of characters which changed either gradually or instantly, this engaged me more into the performance. I also liked the way the performers moved to the music, and used their instruments expressively, to me; this involved me more into what they were playing. Whilst the orchestra were playing, the three opera singers; Karen Cargill, Andrew Staples and Brindley Sheratt, shocked me to the limit. Their singing was breath-taking! When they all sang together, the sound filled the hall in such a dramatic way that everyone was completely silent, waiting for what was going to happen next!
