Inua’s visit to the Royal Opera House
We’ve enlisted the words of poet and graphic artist Inua Ellams to get the word on the street from Covent Garden visitors and this week Inua found himself amongst the amazing surroundings of the Royal Opera House. Over the next 12 months Inua will be spending time on the Piazza, in St Paul’s Church and maybe even on stilts with the Street Performers just to name a few, gathering thoughts, opinions and feelings from our visitors. Below is the result of an evening spent in the Royal Opera House just before a performance of La Fille Du Régiment.
The first Dance.
If we take the lamp’s light
for a wash across the stage,
and cast the varnished desk
as polished sprung floors,
If the box office attendant
dressed orchestral black, whose
finger flick might conjure up
the Caspian, or a Spanish court
then dancing to his fingers,
in straight-backed perfection
the flat screen monitor
becomes the ballerina.
Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 03/05/2010 // 19.15.
I am at the Royal Opera House speaking to audience members before tonight’s performance of La Fille Du Régiment. Henrietta chats warmly about converting her 7 year old son to the ways of ballet, and of being moved to tears by something she saw here last year. Emily, her daughter, wears bright blue makeup that matches her dress. Laura and her boyfriend tell of changing to nicer clothes after work, Laura in black and white, he, a suit to match. I wear a grey cardigan on a white tee. But everything around bespeaks finer clothes, the polished circular bar, mirrors covering far wall, all bouncing light and lifting. Most of those gathered are clothed accordingly, suits, pearls… to my left, a close cut black dress, white heels, further, a figure hugging dark blue adorned with flowers, sweeping as she walks. A polka dotted bow tie… there’s one kid in stripped jeans and well worn Converse All Stars, his mother’s sharp glare rests his hand from his hood, and somewhere beside him, Tom, sat squat on the long bench, as casually dressed as I am.
Tom generously answers my questions in his faint Irish lilt… of listening to his grandparents’ collection of classic records – his entry to the orchestral world, before a stint as a choir boy. ‘No, I wouldn’t go back for the opera, there’s not much going on… a little at the Gaitey Theatre and The Wexford Opera Festival…’ He left Dublin for personal reasons, came to London as a management consultant, visits the opera house 9/10 a year. I fail at masking my surprise and ask if it’s always been like this? ‘No, I met someone at University who came, I followed him once and loved it’. He talks of not having the time to come as often back then but ’10 years ago my health took a turn for the worse’… I search him for clues, but all that’s suggestive is a walking stick at his side. ‘I know’ he says, ‘some say opera is silly scenarios with showing off, but it transports you… no other art form does as much.
Over the speaker comes a reminder, the show will start soon. The crowd moves as any, wine glasses downed like cheap beer, decorum cast aside for the new hunger, the want to forget themselves for a few hours, cast aside for the transportation of show. I imagine a childhood Tom, perhaps a little hungrier than most, eyes closed and over an Irish huddle, a well clothed audience, or beside a garden market, his voice returned its youth, and singing.
