A night with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra - and Phil and Wendy

Tony wants me to write something sophisticated, so here goes, we heard overtures from Rossini and Verdi, the overtures of Rossini are gems in their own right, bearing an economy of 'ideation' yet an extraordinary flair for melodic invention ------------ pleeeeeease ------------that sounds like such a bloody croc. Back to what I thought of our night at the theatre. It was a lovely evening, starting with being picked up in a car - not having to walk meant that we - no - I could wear decent clothes and sort of shoes, well I still have to climb over the pulpit at the front of the bowsprit and manoevre around to compensate for the 30kn winds which are moving Moondancer around considerably, so I can't actually wear a dress, but at least something other than hiking boots and jeans. So that's how it started, and then we got to the Theatre and met with our Danish and Dutch friends in the courtyard lobby - (just remember that this theatre dates back to 1732, which makes me feel a bit like an excitable American on holiday in London, but not wanting to appear gauch, we take all of this amazing stuff in stride. I think our friends were equally in awe of this beautiful theatre. From the car to the theatre we walked down Republic Street which has recently been lit for Christmas with hundreds of angels suspended from the buildings - Oh God, I'm starting to act like a bloody American again, taking pictures galore while everyone else is just being so cool. Then the theatre and the performance was everything we hoped it would be, it was a lovely evening. We were mostly respectful of our surroundings, obeyed the rules about not taking pictures during the performance though we really wanted to, and only took the piss a little bit every time the resident conductor, Michael Laus left his podium to wipe the sweat from his brow - we of course said that he was going off to take a tipple. And when the First Violinist/Leader, (a woman) and Michael were presented with bouquets at the end of the performance, we all said, Hey how come she gets a bouquet? and I said its because she's Michael's mistress and Tony said it was because she is a slut. So after we brought the whole thing down to our level we all left happily to eat at a lovely little restaurant close to the boat which was packed with Maltese all enjoying simple good food.

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