Garsington Studios

We have had a musical few days.

On Wednesday we saw The Pirates of Penzance at Wilton's Music Hall, a genuine Victorian music hall in the East End of London.  The plot revolves around some surprisingly honourable pirates wooing some surprisingly willing maidens.  What I didn't notice when I bought the tickets, was that it was performed by an all-male group, which made it even more hilarious than usual.

On Thursday we heard the Academy of Ancient Music perform some little known, but very beautiful, Baroque music in Milton Court.

Last night we watched the video of Platée, newly and freely available on OperaVision, which reminded us of a lovely evening last Summer.

And today we went to Garsington Studios to join 50+ locals to for a Stage-a-chorus - a potted version of Bizet's Carmen.  It took us 3 hours to learn and rehearse all the words, music, actions and scene shifting for a 10 minute performance.  It was tremendous fun and gives you an insight into what goes on to produce the performances we love.