Andrea at the Royal Opera House

A trip to the Royal Opera House

This evening my girlfriend and I went to see Wagner’s Parsifal at the Royal Opera House in London. Parsifal is approximately five hours long. Wagner’s music, like Richard Strauss’, is sweeping, haunting and majestic, but he was rather preoccupied with superstition and legend and this opera features a good deal of talk about “holy spears”, “holy grails” and the like. Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable fantasy.

The Royal Opera House (if you haven’t been) is a beautiful building with, of course, excellent acoustics, and it features several sumptuous dining areas. Next time I’ll reserve a table.

The thing that shocked us about the evening, however, was the appearance of many of the paying public. There were many ruddy-faced well-fed men whom one suspected might be at the opera more because it was “the thing to do” rather than because of a deep love of classical music and opera in particular, but also many people who had obviously made no effort whatsoever over their appearance.

We had got a little dressed up. I may not have looked great (my best suit is ivory, and I deemed black more suitable for the event) but my girlfriend looked lovely in a black evening dress, elbow length gloves and pearls. Many other people, however, wore jeans, caps, trainers, whatever. Nothing wrong with those, in their place, but where is the decorum in society these days? Once was the day that everybody would dress smartly in evening wear to an opera - it was an occasion.

I considered this state of affairs to be another indicator of the general decline of standards in society. The Royal Opera House should introduce a dress code. I found myself wondering: if a £360 trip there is not enough to make people consider dressing up a little and taking a pride in their appearance, what exactly is?

Christmas

Christmas should probably be abolished because it’s not good to celebrate anything which has its roots in irrationality, and especially religion - it lends support to religious belief in the same way moderates excuse extremists.

I’m attracted to it though, of course, in that it’s a time when people come together and are happy and there are candles, presents, nice trees etc, which taken apart from religion are very nice. But we could really do that kind of thing all year long. You don’t need an excuse for it. Personally I give presents to people whenever it suits me and sometimes not at Christmas (just ask my family).

It has become mainly a commercial enterprise now anyway, which is almost as distasteful as its irrational roots. It puts great strains and obligations on people, and January is the month in which most divorce applications are filed.

Nonetheless, here is at least one fine Christmas song, by Low. It does not seem very religious however and of course would have been just as good were it not about Christmas!

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