Ruth Elleson
@ruthelleson
Church/choral musician (alto), massive opera nerd, surtitle operator, and project planner working in public transport. Idiots not tolerated. She/her.
My bank has an entirely unrealistic view of my income, for some reason. This account requires £5,000 a month being paid in if I don’t want to incur fees… (Even with shifting things around mid-month, and friends reimbursing me for opera tickets I’ve bought on my credit card, I’m nowhere near!)
“Forty-eight. It’s not fair. I’m too old. It’s against the law.” The perfect quote from my birthday trip to Billy Budd…
Expecting another full house at @wigmore-hall.org.uk for this concert!
Besides watching the opera, the other priority is always finding out what’s on next year. I’m very selective about Garsington visits because of the prices, but I foresee a trip to see Falstaff next year on my birthday 🥰
While I am one of those people who starts complaining when the temperature heads much above the low 20s (Celsius), I’m genuinely delighted for all the UK summer opera venues whose seasons begin next week.
I like all of those colours individually. Personally I wouldn’t wear something that featured all three equally, though I currently love those shades of cerise (my colour) and orange (on its own not at all my colour) as a combo!
Still 15 seats to go, and it would appear that Labour is hanging on to my local council… but there really isn’t much in it!
Anyway: Untitled, 2023. In which the Royal Ballet company dress up as Chelsea Opera Group concert programmes.
ENO is conveniently forgetting to mention that the bottom-price tickets they’re selling this season for “just £25” were less than half this price last season. I’m in a price bracket where I can take my chances on discounted higher price bands. But what’s anyone with a budget of £15 meant to do?
I have sent them a comment on Instagram, which seems to be the only social media they’re on these days.
I would like to point out to Bold Tendencies (the summer music and visual arts programme in Peckham) that if it does not contain information on the dates and times of your live events - or a link to such info, that’s already been uploaded - it’s not a “full programme announcement”.
Toi toi toi to @regentsopera.bsky.social colleagues on opening night…
This sign by the lifts in Borough tube station is just *asking* to have the words “Throw” and “to the” added to it with Sharpie. Not that I could possibly endorse such a thing.
On the one day this week which I need to spend indoors in the dark, the weather has decided that for one day only, it’s July.
Can’t blame Byrd directly for this, but thanks to the Oxford University Press it’s one of the more spectacular elephant-trap page turns in the choral repertoire. Happy Easter from the choir of @stolavehartst.bsky.social…
I’m KIND OF on holiday for a couple of days. I don’t have a full Holy Week schedule with my current regular church choir, so I’m at the ballet (Mayerling, with role debuts by William Bracewell and Fumi Kaneko) being beautifully looked-after by my favourite bartender in the Conservatory bar.
Does anyone really think updates to train operating company websites are “exciting” except POSSIBLY the people who personally built the software?
Email from the local salon where I get my eyebrows done. They’ve missed out the therapist’s name, leaving me wondering whether it’s somebody I don’t usually go to, or whether I just haven’t noticed the increasing pregnancy of the lady who’s been doing my brows every few weeks…
Report from tonight’s concert: Mascagni wrote luscious music in general, but there is a reason why nobody ever does Silvano, and why Cav is a repertoire standard.
Funny how the Barbican always thinks this is the aspect of membership I might like to sample for 24 hours, and not, for example, priority booking on the day the new Classical season goes on sale…
Imagine booking Wozzeck tickets for your young children thinking it might be a cosy family show…
I should go to the opera in Nottingham more often. The theatre bar sells decent real ale and it’s £4.70 a pint 😯
New block of flats at Elephant & Castle. Pronounced like the flower/Shakespearean heroine, or like the butt of all orchestral musicians’ jokes, I wonder? 🤔
On a very gloomy bus which appears to have no working lights. Night is falling, so I’m just hoping I get to my destination before they have to take it out of service for safety reasons… (it terminates at the bus garage anyway, so I imagine the driver’s planning to complete the route).
Trying to work out how this constitutes disruption to my bus route. The cycle lane is where it always is…
Contemporary opera UK premiere klaxon: the e-programme for Owen Wingrave at GSMD, which opens tomorrow, reveals that their summer show will be Missy Mazzoli’s ‘Proving Up’.