I have been to The English National Opera many times, each time has been an event and since it was re-furbished it has been very accessible. I have only ever sat in a Stalls Box since being in a wheelchair so I was a little worried when I was told I was going to see Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss, in the Dress Circle.
I am registered with ENO so I get the free carers seat and this makes the cost of going very reasonable. It also means they know my needs and prepare accordingly, in this case they took an aisle seat out and I sat in my wheelchair in the vacant space. It all went swimmingly until we decided to order drinks for the two intervals – it’s a long opera but I love the music and don’t really take any notice of the nonsensical story. In German or English it’s still silly.
There are two bars and we of course ordered from the bar that wasn’t for the Dress Circle. This meant my companion had to run around finding our drinks order in a melee – defined as ‘a confused mass of people’. That it was and quite claustrophobic too! The drinks and sandwiches were found- the wine not good, sandwiches OK. The next interval we just had ice-creams. At this point I remembered why we had always taken a Box on previous occasions i.e. we brought our own food and could drink during the performance, usually champagne as we saved on the sandwich cost.
Nevertheless it was a great night and the Trio of voices in the final act was so beautiful and very moving, a great night out and definitely an ‘event’. Thank you to my friend, Mariele.
