First blog since May

Well, I think you can see the point at which the music festival took over my life. Four of us do absolutely everything, and there's just so much. I got to the stage of tear-filled frustration more than once, especially when I realised how many notes I had to learn in the Mozart. But at least I could wake up every morning and thank heaven (figuratively, of course) that I wasn't singing the 'Et incarnatus est'. Frankly, I just wouldn't have made it. Even the second sop part (as it's traditionally done) covers more than two octaves and quite a few semi-quavers, I can assure you. According to our resident expert, Dr Maunder, the usual split of responsibilities isn't at all authentic - Constanze would have bagged both big solos, and they'd have got a castrato in to sing the duet, trio and quartet. I wasn't sure any of the sops I know would fancy this role, though...

Anywa, I'm not going to ramble on about soloist's paranoias, for once (I've done that every other year....) - I've been mentally writing a post about Peter Grimes as a paedophile since I saw the ENO production (and read the programme notes), and I really want to write it before I forget it all. What's a non-cliché that means the same as 'Watch this space'?