At the opera

The outcome of yesterday's clothes shopping was revealed to the cognoscenti tonight in the Grand Canal Theatre (I refuse to use the rotten branded official name for the venue). Irish National Opera's sumptuous production of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. What a wonderful (and long) night!

I went with our great mate Tom, who'd been at a conference in The Netherlands and flew back home today, arriving around 2pm. Meanwhile, I was at today's session of my music group, which was in Cabinteely. Just three of us there, but lots of chat meant it was quite a rush afterwards for me to get back home, change into the new clobber and get a taxi to the theatre for the 7pm start. We'd arranged to meet at 6:15 in the nearby Marker hotel for an aperitif but the silly place was concentrating on food and the lobby area which used to be an ideal place for a quick drink before a performance was off bounds.

We managed one drink at the theatre bar, took our seats and sat back to wallow in Strauss's wonderful music. It was a terrific night. An excellent production, and wonderfully good to see the three main roles filled by fine Irish singers (Celine Byrne, Paula Murrihy and Claudia Boyle). It's a long night (didn't finish until 11:00 – with two intervals), but worth every glorious minute.