A while back - well, pre-Covid! - my Dorothy Dunnett reading friends in the north of England had suggested that for once, instead of me trailing down to Yorkshire or wherever to meet up, they might come to Glasgow for a change. Covid put the plans on hold but they were revived last year, we managed to find a date that suited us all, and they finally made it over the border in May.
They had decided that they wanted to theme their stay around Charles Rennie Mackintosh, which is easily done as Glasgow now celebrates one of its most famous sons in a big way, despite being largely indifferent to him, and his equally talented wife, while he was alive.
We'd scouted out places to go way back at the beginning of the year and put together a flexible itinerary and, despite one of the party having to drop out at the last minute for sad family reasons, the rest made it in good order.
We met up at Kelvingrove Art Gallery which has a fairly recently redeveloped gallery featuring CRM and the Glasgow Style. Naturally we started with coffee and a catch up then visited the gallery. When we had done with CRM we split up to follow our own artistic tastes, which meant a trip to the Scottish Colourists gallery for me and Dutch and French art for some of the others. We reconvened at the restaurant for lunch, after which the visitors decided to catch a Big Red Hop-On Hop Off Glasgow Tour Bus and I think the OH and I went to Marks and Spencer to do some clothes shopping. It's a bit of a blur, but I do know we did go to M and S and I can't think when else we might have fitted it in, so let's say that's when we did it. Then back to the flat for a shower , a change of clothes, and to pick up Son no 2 who was joining us for the evening's festivities.
When we had made the plans for the weekend the others had expressed an interest in going to the opera if there was anything on and happily there was, and even more happily it was Carmen, which is very accessible for people who aren't committed opera goers. The OH and I were a bit concerned because it was a new production and, although heaven knows SO were desperately in need of a new Carmen, we weren't sure that this actual production was the one they needed. For a start it was in English translation, and of all the languages opera is translated from French is probably the trickiest to manage to fit sensibly to the music. Plus they had added a sort of framing narrative to the opera which involved a female detective investigating Carmen's murder. Quite why they felt they needed this at all begs a question, especially in view of the fact that Jose declares at the end of the opera - and in this version also right at the very beginning - that he killed Carmen and begs to be taken away, so the whole investigation story is all a but redundant. Not to mention the fact that I can't imagine a Spanish regime until very recently that would have bothered to investigate the violent killing of a gypsy - but you know I could be doing them a disservice. In the event everyone enjoyed it which was a relief. I know it's had some rave reviews in the papers; personally I wouldn't give it a 5 star review but there you go. The singing was generally good and the singer we support through the Emerging Artist scheme sang quite a large role in it - and was, naturally very good. I'd say I wouldn't rush to see it again, except that it is, you know Carmen, and the music is fabulous.
We had an early dinner before the performance at Pieno which the OH and I go to sometimes when we're in Glasgow and we have pictures of that.
I once had to review a (professional) performance of The Importance of Being Earnest which used a framing device of it being performed by an am-dram group. This seemed to be solely in order to give a plausible reason why two old men (Martin Jarvis and Nigel Havers) were playing the two young male leads ...
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