To Float on the Wayward Wind

My time in London quickly dwindled. Though I am thankful to have had the time I did and I had plenty of opportunity for theatre, opera, cultural/sightseeing excursions, and wonderful trips to other parts of Europe, 2.5 months is definitely just a brief sojourn, much more so than when I spent 4 months in Vienna. Still, I managed to cram a ton into my last couple weeks in London. I'm adding photos here and some comments about my activities just going down in order of the notes I took, since I knew it would be a while (about 1.5 months!) before I could get around to writing everything. I'm breaking the post up into three parts so as to cut load times and make it more manageable. One activity for my class British Life & Culture was to go to a football (soccer, for American readers) match. Ours was in the Championship League between QPR and Charlton Athletic. It was an exciting match and QPR won the day decisively, with offense that constantly kept the pressure on Charlto...

My review of the English National Opera's production of Philip Glass' Satyagraha  has been posted at:  http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/2013/12/timely-intensity-glass-satyagraha-at.html

My review of the English National Opera's production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Die Zauberflöte  has been posted at:  http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/2013/12/simple-comedy-mozarts-die-zauberflote.html

My review of the Royal Opera House's production of Richard Wagner's  Parsifal  has been posted at:  http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/2013/12/musical-mastery-wagners-parsifal-at.html

My review of the English National Opera's production of Giacomo Puccini's  Madama Butterfly  has been posted at: http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/2013/12/ravishing-visual-beauty-puccinis-madama.html

My review of the Royal Opera House's production of Alban Berg's Wozzeck  has been posted at: http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/2013/12/chilling-sterility-bergs-wozzeck-at.html

My review of Royal Albert Hall's concert of Britten's  War Requiem  on Remembrance Day Sunday has been posted at:  http://passionofopera.blogspot.com/2013/12/atmosphere-defeated-brittens-war.html

I wasn't sure if I would have time to get to Versailles because it is a bit of a trip outside of Paris (though very doable in half a day, I was told and discovered). I was really excited to go, however, for a variety of reasons. The absolutist period, the culture of the period, and the music by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Jean-Philippe Rameau, which I studied in a course at Lawrence University titled, "Music and Power in the Reign of the Sun King." This course focused on how Louis XIV, who loved dance (as one of the best dancers of the time, himself), built Versailles with music, spectacle, and dance in mind. We discussed how music accompanied him where he went and how the gardens of Versailles, particularly, were the set for magical performances involving music. Like the Eiffel Tower, this is place that still left me in awe today, meaning I can't imagine how people viewed it when it was built. It's amazing it was completed (even if not in the...