Saturday, June 5, 2010

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Let's see...what did I do today?! Heavens, I really can't remember. Isn't that weird how after an incredibly eventful day or weekend, someone can ask you what you did and you can totally not recall anything that you did? I think it is.

Well, now I remember. I woke up at a reasonable hour (9ish, which, if I were at home, would not be a reasonable hour, but I've adapted slightly different sleep habits on this trip.), read the skippies, and then went to get tickets for a touring production of “Spamalot” with theatre friend Annalee and a few of her friends.

We went to Pizza Express, which is pretty similar to California Pizza Kitchen back in the states, before the show for lunch and then hit up the show.

Honestly, the show was kind of disappointing. I think in order to really pull it off, you have to go at it with about 400% dedication and these guys did it with about 94%. In a regular show, 94% might actually fly, but not this one; you need much more than that. I could see the show being just phenomenal, but they weren't totally committed to their humor and jokes, etc. I think I'm finding that I find British musical theatre to be fairly disappointing on the whole, actually. There have been very few times during this trip that things have really clicked in and made me think they really worked. Now, straight theatre is a totally different story. The straight theatre has been, on the whole VERY good. I've been super pleased with it. But I don't think I plan on seeing any more musicals in England (if/when I come back) unless I hear consistent rave reviews from extremely credible sources.

Since the show got out a bit early, I headed back home before our evening concert of the Croyden Philharmonic Choir. They did Haydn's “The Creation.” The orchestra was pretty decent and the choir was....well, as my friend, Emily, and I decided, not painful...mostly. The soloists were actually quite good though. I especially liked the soprano. She had a beautiful, Baroque-style voice and had not been singing for so long that it had gotten too warbly. Often, when sopranoes get into their career, they started being influenced pretty heavily by opera and other styles of music and they start developing a shrill, warbly sound. Well, it's not like it's a light switch and BAM, they have it, but they definitely do go that direction. Anyway, she had a very round, warm tone and it was very pleasant to listen to. I also thought the tenor was quite good. He placed his voice in fairly high placement, which lent itself well to Haydn's music. The baritone was....good, but I didn't like him. And he had some warbly notes, when it wasn't quite clear which note he was trying to sing.

I felt kind of bad tonight. I went to the concert not really in the mood to go to a concert. Consequently, when I saw that the concert was going to more less like the Ealing Choral Society from a couple weeks ago, I kind of tuned out a bit. I think I could have gotten a lot more out of the concert, had I gone in with the correct attitude. But then again, sometimes you just don't want to do things. And I suppose it is our responsibility to change our attitude, even if we don't want to do that thing.

One highlight of the concert was the conductor. He was about as ballistic as they come. When he wanted a really big rebound in his pattern, he would often have his hand explode into a brief jazz hands-like manner, usually accompanied by a swift head flip, which caused quite the hair flop. The man was all over the place. It was really quite thrilling to watch him and his animation.

And then back to the flat to hang out for a chill night.