A night at the opera

I went to a Cymanfa Ganu on Sunday, which is hymns in Welsh, sung by everyone. It was at the Tabernacle and part of the Machynlleth music festival, and because it was special they got a local Welsh male voice choir in to sing along. They were absolutely amazing so I decided I’d come back to hear the proper version, a full male voice choir concert, which was tonight.

The choir was from Anglesey so I don’t think it was the same one but they had a trick up their sleeves which was that they’d got in this fantastic tenor called Gwyn Hughes Jones with them who was absolutely superb, or iawn iawn iawn as the compere said. The first song he did nearly brought me to tears, it was so absolutely amazing, lots of soaring notes and a really long high one at the end. The choir did loads of lovely Welsh songs, none of which I can remember the name of obviously, apart from ‘O Cymru’ which is a song all about how wonderful Wales is.

I was stuck at the back craning round a head-mover in the first half (you know the type, he’s taller than you, he’s got a great big head and just as you’ve found a position from which you can see round him, he shifts to the other side). After a cup of tea and pink wafer (!) in the interval I returned to find my seat had been swiped by an old lady who said she had been sat at the front but it was too noisy J So without delay I took up her spot and spent the rest of the concert being blasted full on with tenor and male voice choir, fantastic.

The tenor did a trio of songs that he said were ‘a tenor’s staple’; these were Nessun Dorma, something else and ‘O Sole Mio’ (I think that might actually not be called that though). Unfortunately I am such a pleb that whenever I hear ‘Nessun Dorma’, I hear the beautiful tune and words but in my head I still hear the insistent cry of Robert Newman in the Mary Whitehouse Experience singing ‘and let go flat my fizzy drink! Fizzy drink!! Fi-zeeeeeeee DRINK!!!!’. The Mary Whitehouse Experience were a comedy program around at the time of the 1990 World Cup and did a parody version of Nessun Dorma complaining about irritating people that leave tops off things (toothpaste, fizzy drinks). I guarantee that anyone else who was between 12 and 21 at the time will have exactly the same problem. A similar problem also applies to ‘O Sole Mio’ but this time it’s a gondolier punting around Venice singing about Cornettos (triumphantly finishing ‘from WALLS ice cream!!’).

Despite my plebitude the evening was marvellous. I have decided I’m going to try and join a choir when I go to Loughborough.

Speaking of Loughborough, I phoned them up today to check my accommodation had gone through, and got some details about what I was meant to bring. I can’t wait to go now, it’s less than a month until I move, and only 2 ½ weeks till I go off on my trip to France. Woo hoo, something’s happening!

Footnote: England won the Ashes on Sunday, hooray! A victory that was fully deserved given that we played brilliantly in the last test, which is not at all like us when the chips are down. Flintoff did an inspired run-out of Ricky Ponting, which I watched on YouTube in the library today because our internet’s down at home. A dangerous thing to do if you’re going to whoop and holler at the end of the clip.