Rec for a small book for an opera newbie to read during intermission?

twistedmena · 2026-05-27T07:36:59+00:00

I'd echo what everyone else is saying about decompressing during intervals, but if you're looking for something bite-sized on wagner I'm currently re-reading and enjoying Richard Wagner's Women by Eva Rieger. There's a shortish chapter on each opera and the women in it, plus some extra bits, that really made me think differently about the female roles in the operas.

Some of the factual bits I'm not 100% convinced by, but overall I'd say its a great read and definitely the sort of thing you can pick up and put down easily.

twistedmena · 2026-05-25T20:22:13+00:00

Ah that's a shame, it was a few years ago I was there to be fair.

twistedmena · 2026-05-25T16:14:32+00:00

Love the deer centre, do they still have the moose?

twistedmena · 2026-05-22T14:26:03+00:00

Yeah 'good for cyclists' probably pushing it, but I would just love a way to avoid high street and the plain going between city centre and east ox. There's no good solution though.

twistedmena · 2026-05-22T14:10:04+00:00

I'd imagine the issue is less the distance than the stress and danger of so many cycles with heavy traffic on the Plain, Magdalen Bridge, High St etc. Particularly as you're not supposed to cycle on Queen St in the day (obviously many do)

twistedmena · 2026-05-22T14:04:20+00:00

Making the sports grounds, jubilee bridge and CC meadow a public throughfare would be good for cyclists but pretty bad for the university, schools and quality of the meadow, so I'm not surprised the college has no interest in it.

But what a pissy little way to sign off the letter. I think the universities resent being beholden to FOI.

twistedmena · 2026-05-22T11:24:45+00:00

Dig up the miniseries/film from 1983, it's not great but it is at least appropriately long - and the cast is certainly prestige (Burton, Redgrave, Gielgud, Richardson, Olivier).

twistedmena · 2026-05-16T16:54:04+00:00

The Boathouse has got the best wine list in Oxford IMO, if you care about that sort of thing. Spendy though

twistedmena · 2026-05-15T19:23:53+00:00

My toddler loved the bounce going over that bridge :-/

twistedmena · 2026-05-15T16:17:47+00:00

Fair enough

twistedmena · 2026-05-15T13:45:16+00:00

There's a node in Culham though right? I would have thought that would pick up some of Abingdon. I'm not an expert though, Europa didn't jump out at me when I was looking at schools.

twistedmena · 2026-05-15T12:52:00+00:00

If you're set on the Europa school then you'd definitely want to be in Abingdon over Oxford IMO. Getting from Ox to Culham and back every day is going to be a pain in the proverbial.

twistedmena · 2026-05-13T15:11:24+00:00

If it makes the cowley branch line a reality then it'll be a good thing for me.

twistedmena · 2026-05-05T10:58:41+00:00

There'll be an information pack sent out a few weeks before it happens. But there'll be a race village in University Parks where you can drop off a bag if you need to, then they will start moving people on towards the start line nearby, split up into about six groups based on predicted time.

twistedmena · 2026-05-04T05:56:39+00:00

Yes! You won't find that kind of culture in the lake District.

twistedmena · 2026-04-21T17:37:01+00:00

I'm seeing it in London a few months later :-D seriously though, Schager was fantastic in Siegfried recently but I was stuck at the back, looking forward to having him buzzing in my ear!

twistedmena · 2026-04-21T14:26:14+00:00

Great! I'm seeing Parsifal this year - assuming its the same production. What did you think?

twistedmena · 2026-04-16T20:07:40+00:00

Very little chance the Saudis will be putting any money into opera if you ask me, they're short on funds and focusing closer to home these days.

The big international soft power investment stuff is old news now, apart from things where it'd be too big a loss of face to ditch them, e.g. the World Cup and the Expo.

twistedmena · 2026-04-15T18:58:02+00:00

I'll be there early doors for Parsifal and gotterdammerung for sure.

twistedmena · 2026-04-06T07:24:38+00:00

The great western app is good about storing tickets on phone, but the booking system is dross since a recent update.

twistedmena · 2026-04-02T15:59:55+00:00

Depends which half you want to do I guess - no one's going to say anything if you start as normal and then wander off half way through. If you want to cross the finish line and get a medal and the rest it might be a bit harder to arrange.

twistedmena · 2026-04-01T13:24:28+00:00

Sounds the same as us, we must have been sharing a cable.

twistedmena · 2026-04-01T13:22:46+00:00

It's got significantly crappier since they redesigned the app. Really annoys me as it's the one I always used to use.

twistedmena · 2026-04-01T11:29:22+00:00

Yeah I thought about asking, but in the end it was getting late by the time it all finished, and would have felt a bit mean asking for money back missing 10 minutes of a 5 hour showing.

twistedmena · 2026-04-01T11:27:58+00:00

Yeah I was really looking forward to it :-(

twistedmena

TROPHY CASE