The Reef

Saw The Reef with the ACO today.  Quite nice.  The seat I had – because the publicist had to give me returned tickets – were the worst I’ve had at the Opera House, not that I particularly minded (as I’m always open to a new experience and all, and grateful for what I’m given, and happy to be alive, and all that).  The concert was a surfie-type film with live music, both classical and non-classical underneath, and two parts of the screen were blocked by lights and speakers hanging from the ceiling (though the screen was big enough that I could see most of it).  I was in Box W, which is certainly not one of the premium boxes.

Anyway, I was most proud of myself today – most proud – because, having found no one to go with tonight, I went obviously all on my lonesome.  (The bit I’m proud of is coming.)  I knew there was to be no interval, which was somewhat disappointing – because one usually gets a free glass of wine from the ACO – but when I got there I instead had been invited to the ACO Studio after the concert to ‘meet the musicians’ and so on.  I’ve turned down the same type of event with another music group once because the thought of having to make conversation with musicians I don’t know is not something I’m enthusiastic about.  So the thought of going to one of these ‘meet the musicians’ events on my own, in a room where I’d know absolutely no one – not exactly my idea of fun.

And yet I did, because my curiosity got the better of me.  The ACO Studio, next to the Dendy cinemas at Circular Quay, is something I’ve known about for quite some time, as I constantly walk past it to get to the Opera House.  I’d always assumed it was an office on the shoreline – or near to the shoreline, anyway.  But no,  oh no, it’s far more than that.  There’s a studio and everything, and not only that, it’s underground.  Four levels underground or something ridiculous.  The line of people to get into the Studio had to go down about fifteen flights of stairs to get to it (mind you, each flight was about four steps each, going down in a right-angled corkscrew, but still!).  No phone signal at all.  It’s like they’ve built a nuclear bunker.

And so in I swept – after dawdling my way there (one didn’t want a repeat of the solitary Utzon Room experience) – grabbed a glass of wine, grabbed myself something suspicious wrapped around a rolled up piece of lettuce (on later reflection I think it was a piece of grilled eggplant), which wasn’t exactly the tastiest thing I’ve ever had, but I didn’t find it disgusting…  And then, having drunk my wine in less than five minutes – thinking back on it now I’m amazed at how quickly I must have drunk quite a sizeable glass of wine – I made my exit, all the way back up the stairs.  And now I realise that ‘meeting the musicians’ just means hobnobbing with all and sundry while the musicians are in the room – so one isn’t expected to talk to them.  And the musicians hadn’t even made it to the room yet, I don’t think – which is why I got out of there quickly as well, before any speeches might’ve started, making it awkward to leave.

Anyway, anyway, anyway – I wouldn’t have done that a year ago, wouldn’t have gone on my own to something completely unknown to me.  I believe that’s what they call ‘maturing’.

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Finished reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog today and was not impressed with the ending, even if it does tie things up somewhat neatly.  Sort of.  I think the book would’ve been better without the last ten pages.  But still, an enjoyable enough read – not particularly deep, but murky enough so one doesn’t notice most of the time.

What really disappointed me, however, was that I read it as a break from Anna Karenina, and yet Anna Karenina was a damn plot point in the book!  Pets were named after characters in Karenina.  A copy of it was given as a gift.  Scenes from it were discussed.  What kind of bad literary luck is that?  Which literary god did I annoy this time?