Wall of wood

Saturday

Roger had a church council meeting this morning, and it was a cool overcast day, so I stayed in and did some jobs. After lunch we went for a bike ride the far side of Chatelet-en-Brie. We had been this way once before, but we parked in a different spot this time, and as we were setting off, saw a forestry road that seemed to be paralleling the main road, so we took that for a while before coming out on the road further along. It was along here, that we came across this enormous wall of wood. We couldn't make it a very long ride as we were going to the cinema in the evening to see the live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera in New York of Tristan und Isolde by Wagner, and it started at 6pm. Unfortunately the broadcast was rather disappointing, as there were significant technical problems, and I didn't like the staging at all. The Polish director had set it in modern times, which just didn't suit the plot. The "costumes", just regular modern day clothes, we're all dark, black or grey, the lighting was all dark, and the sets just plain weird. I read a couple of reviews on line when we got back home, and the two I read both "slammed" it too, and apparently on opening night some of the audience booed when the direction team came out. The music however was wonderful - the conductor was Sir Simon Rattle, a special treat as he rarely does the Met., and the stars, especially the singer playing Tristan, were terrific. Just a shame that for me at any rate their performance was marred by the setting!

One year ago: New sofa!