Culture!

[mrph]

Last night featured a trip to Birmingham, to see a Welsh National Opera concert peformance - my birthday present from Elaine. They were really rather good...

The first half of the evening was Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, written as a score for the Eisenstein film and then reworked into a piece of its own. Stirring, patriotic songs about how every enemy who sets foot on Russian soil will die - at some moments, the music's almost chirpy about this. If they hadn't had surtitles, I'd never have guessed what they were singing about at those points. As opposed to the grand battle music, which is quite obviously martial. I think the only bit that didn't quite work for me was the solo, a lament for the fallen. One of these days, I should probably watch the film... :)

Carbon 12 was a bit unexpected. It's a new piece by Errollyn Wallen, an oratorio that's mostly about coal. It's also about the funeral of John 'the bookcase' Jones, an old miner who - well, this bit's complicated, but John may be a little a bit older that his friends think he is. And possibly a bit less dead. It made me laugh more than once (as John's friends struggle to explain things), but it's mostly a little more serious in tone. I like it a lot.