A night at the opera... that nearly wasn't.

As I mentioned yesterday (take note - blogging two days on the trot!!) Charlie and I had tickets for the opera tonight - Mozart's Magic Flute to be precise.
But Charlie's been a bit off colour today - he's had a cough all week and just looked a bit rough.
Had he been at school today, I'd have thought twice about sending him, but when his night at the opera was under threat, he miraculously felt 'fine' despite looking a bit wishy-washy and boggy-eyed.
So going a bit against my maternal instincts, off we went to the Millennium Centre this evening.
And I'm really glad we did.
This was Charlie's first experience of 'proper opera' and he absolutely loved it. He couldn't believe it when the curtain went down at the end of the (hour and a quarter) first half because the time had flown by so fast.
It was fabulous - the fact that it was in English made it easy to follow the plot, plus we could appreciate all the funny one-liners.
I loved listening to all the well-known pieces. There's one piece performed by Papageno (Charlie's favourite character) which I knew first as the theme tune to a story I used to listen to as a kid - no audiobooks for me though, 'Jellico the Magic Budgerigar' read by Muriel Young was on 7" vinyl!
The lilting music took me straight back to the early mornings when Dad would make me bread and jam, and plug my headphones into the record player so I could listen to my stories while the rest of the house was still asleep. Happy memories. :-)
Charlie was seriously impressed by the Queen of the Night's aria - it's crazily high but she did a fantastic job.
The programme we bought lists the Welsh National Opera's whole season at the Millennium Centre, and Charlie's already lining up what he wants to see next!
As for me - I'm feeling the need to watch that classic episode of Inspector Morse - 'Masonic Mysteries' - for an encore of tonight's fantastic music!
You really can't beat a bit of Mozart!

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