Confessions of a Wino

I’ve just returned from the opening night of the Opera North production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s play reconfigured as an opera by melody dodger, Benjamin Britten, whose proud boast seems to be never to have written an opera in a major key.

I normally love Opera North (full disclosure, I know one of the chorus quite well), but I am not a Britten fan.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream reminded me of all the negative aspects of the earlier, and otherwise superior, Peter Grimes.  Incessant horns and strings in deliberate discord, keeping the audience on its edge in the same way Hammer House of Horror films used organ fugues to build tension.  Britten never seems to let go, though.  It was like sitting on a train, delayed because of a fatality on the line.  One feels sorry for the victim (or cast in this case) but I just wanted to get home as quickly as possible.  Listening to a gauntlet scratching up and down a blackboard would have been more entertaining, and arguably, more musical.

The humour (what little existed) was 50 years old and could probably only have been written by a tortured homosexual of the repressed mid 20th century.  There were clearly a few from that era in the audience, occasionally chortling and even applauding.  I watched with the same cringingly embarrassed feeling of watching a Carry On film from the Beatles epoch.  Fortunately, to avoid total boredom, I was simply able to stare up at the awesome ceiling of Leeds Grand Theatre, the home of Opera North, and surely one of the best theatres in the world for architectural detail.

Just round the corner from the Grand Theatre is Lounge Bar and Grill, and that is where we chose to eat before the performance.  With 25% off, the bill for two with a bottle of wine came to only £40 plus service.  Even for Leeds that is cheap.

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