A final Italy post - the artwork

My first real life Damien Hirst - stunning, vivid colour and a subtle skull which isn't menacing.

One of the two Mark Quinn Kate Moss statues. J did ask if Kate Moss really could do that. I suggested probably not... Fascinating and loved the gold.

Anish Kapoor's concave circles. For their simplicity I loved these.

Another Damien Hirst, this was perhaps my favourite. All butterflies in a fabulous mosaic/geometric design. Ticking my symmetry and colour and material boxes all at once. If only I could have this in my house one day...

Not sure who this one is by but it made me smile and I like having it hanging off in the first room you walk into.

So there we are, I'm finally going to stop banging on about our one night in Italy!

Verona Arena - A night at the opera!

The whole reason for us to go to Verona was for a night at the opera. Every year they hold an opera festival which lasts during the summer and is held in the Roman arena in the middle of Verona. We went to see the first night of Carmen showing and it was just fabulous!

The sets were all done by Franco Zefferelli and were beautiful. Plus the stage is about three times the size of a normal theatre so you fit many more singers and animals on stage! As you can see by the horse above...

It was a great opera, a wonderful experience and one I won't forget for a long while.

Manon at the Royal Opera House

Last night papa and I went to the opera. We were off to see Manon at the Royal Opera House. This is not an opera I've been to see before, in fact I've not seen any Massenet operas before and I wasn't sure what to expect.

I was therefore delighted by the first few strains coming from the orchastra sweeping through the house and transporting me away from dreary life. The opera was stunning, Massenet's composition is just fabulous and I was so pleased to be seeing an opera I hadn't seen before and really enjoying it. Plus the new production by Laurent Pelly was pretty good, the set a little dreary but the costumes amazing!

We were incredibly lucky with the cast, Anna Netrebko as Manon and Vittorio Grigolo as Des Grieux. Plus a host of other very talented singers. I was especially impressed with Vittorio, as a tenor his voice flows over the orchestra and has a power and richness to it which I often feel is lacking in other tenors. My favourite singers are generally deep male singers, bases and britones.

If you have the time and are quick there might be tickets left, I would highly recommend it. And of course if you do go let me know!

A night at the opera

At the beginning of July we went to the opera with my parents, sister, sister's other half and some other friends of my parents. We were off to the Royal Opera House to see Il Barbiere Di Siviglia by Rossini.



And it was fabulous! I would thoroughly recommend it if it comes to an Opera House near you. Although we were nearly thwarted by some different problems, first the lead female singer Joyce DiDonato fractured her leg on the first night! And so was performing in a wheelchair. Amazingly enough this worked really well, all things considered. Then at the beginning of the performance out came a lady and you could hear the collective groan of wondering what had happened. When it was announced the lead male singer had gone down with a cold so would not be singing but would still act and there would be a singer on the side of the stage! Again it worked really well, once you remembered to focus on the acting singer not the singing singer.

The Royal Opera House is also one of my favourite buildings in London. Inside and out. I took some pictures of the floral hall, now called the Paul Hamlyn Hall, which is just stunning. At the top of the picture above you can see the box where you can stand in the Amphitheatre Bar and look down on everyone drinking in the floral hall.

I'd recommend to go just to see the building, and the operas are normally pretty spectacular too!

Banksy - Bristol Museum

I'm not a big art person, I like it but don't spend hours staring at it. I can do an art museum very quickly... But I have always liked Banksy works, there are a lot in and around Farringdon where I lived in my first year in London and I grew to like their quirky ness, detail and messages. I noticed the other day that there's a whole exhibition of his work on in Bristol right now (where he apparently grew up), which I would love to go to. But things are busy right now and I have no time to get there, so instead here are a couple of my favourites from the web. I especially love that the Damien Hirst is an original! What do you think? Do you like them?

Images from Telegraph website

Tales from Tripoli

Tripoli is a crazy place, from the moment you land to the moment you leave it's hard to get used to. As a north African/Arab state it really is a mixture of cultures, combined with the ancient flows of peoples such as the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Ottomans, the Italians, the Spanish and so on. As a people they are fabulously friendly, warm, curious, helpful.

As a city... The traffic is mad, three lanes = five cars, pavements are crumbly and dusty, plastic bottles everywhere. But hidden wonders too. Moments of peace and tranquillity to be found amongst the madness.

This post is a short one for now, I shall put more pictures up soon but the one above was one of my favourites, the moon shining above, the palms gently in the breeze and the simplicity of the mosque. A moment of peace in a city of madness.

Culture, Culture

Somehow, this weekend ended up being surprisingly cultural, in a lovely way though. On Friday I went with American Friend 1 (now AF1) and a couple of her friends to see Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Click here for more information.

Picture from V&A website.

I'm not a big one for museums, I like seeing them but not spending long in them. So I wasn't sure what to expect but this exhibition was superb. Small but not too small, and it still had plenty to see and marvel at. Some of the hats were amazing beautiful creations, others perhaps not quite so practical! But what it did make us all think was that people should wear more hats. For my wedding I asked all my girls to wear hats/fascinators if they could and they were superb. They looked so beautiful and it made it so much more of an occasion. So I'm now going to try and commit to wearing more hats. I can't wait to find one for my sister-in-law's wedding in August. More to come on this hopefully!

My second cultural event was a trip to the opera with the family. We went to see I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Royal Opera House. Unfortunately the lead singer Anna Netrebko cancelled at the last minute so we had Eri Nakamura instead, who considering it was her first lead position did an amazing job. The opera was good, perhaps not one of my favourites, I wouldn't leap to go and see it again but it was an enjoyable evening. I love going to the opera, it's a great night out and the thrill of going to see a live performance is wonderful. I think I probably cry more at the curtain calls than the stories but it's all good!

So now I feel well and truly cultured which should last me for a while!