a little culture

Just lately Ela and I have enjoyed two performances. The first was an interesting event. The Palace Cinema in Leichardt was screening selected Royal Ballet and Opera performances with HD and surround sound and we went along to watch Tchaikovsky’s The Tsarina's Slippers. I thought it was be a fun afternoon and a cheaper alternative to the real thing. The trailers showed a lot of colourful costumes and singing and dancing. However, I should have read up more about it because it turned out to be much more opera than ballet...Well I thought they (Ela and her friend Celina) would at least be able to follow the story but it was a russian opera with subtitles in English! And the girls can't read that well as yet. So i ended up having to read out what was going on. It was quite funny as they would keep asking me 'what are they saying now?' And couldn't quite understand it when i kept answering  "the same as last time'. Some funny quotes from Ela:

"she sounds like a siren" (about the leading lady's singing)

"why is he so worried" (about the conductor)

"I think he's a bit crazy" (also the conductor)

""Those nails look fake to me" (about the devil)

Then today we went to see Wicked the musical. It was such a great show - so cleverly written. Before hand we went for our favourite lunch, Kaiten-Zushi at a beautiful little sushi bar behind the theatre, called Umi. The show was spectacular especially the costumes. Ela made me laugh when at one point, the good fairy and the prince were having an engagement party then the wicked witch came along and the prince decided to run off with her instead. She asked me 'mummy is it possible to get unmarried?' I didn't think it was the time or place to start talking about divorce so i said 'no sweetheart. And anyway they aren't married they are just engaged'. Thinking this would head her off. 'So its ok to go off with someone else when you are just engaged then mummy?'. Good grief :)