h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's the Autumn Long Weekend.

El's friend E is coming to stay on Friday and Saturday night. They sing together in Trinity College Chapel on Sunday mornings. El recently got the Chapel Choir scholarship, which means that she has to turn up every Sunday and sing, but they pay her €500 for the year. Last year she was there every Sunday without pay.

Iz is going away on Saturday night, as she has a 2-day rehearsal for her January concert (she plays bassoon) and they're going to keep the kids overnight.

Mrs G and I are going to Wexford on Sunday. We'll go and see the opera, which is on at 5pm, with Azara and her friend M. Dinner jacket and black tie at the ready - the only day that I dress up other than when I'm performing myself. The Wexford Opera Festival specialises in obscure operas that nobody has ever heard of. This year it is by Smetana. We usually get through a bottle of champagne during the interval. Then we'll all go out to dinner - we're hoping to get seats in La Dolce Vita, arguably the best Italian restaurant in Ireland. Azara and M will stay in a hotel in Wexford, but Mrs G and I will go to our mobile home which is about 20 minutes drive south of there.

It will be cold at this time of year in the mobile; but it's the last day of the year we'll stay there. On Monday morning, we'll tidy it up and drain the water system in preparation for the winter - we've had icy winters in Wexford for the last 2 years; 2 years ago our pipes burst. Last year we drained our system, but the mobile next to us had problems with burst pipes.

I presume that El and Iz will treat themselves to takeaway chips on the evening that we're not at home.

I've just had a look to see what operas Smetana wrote apart from the Bartered Bride. I could only find a list in German - so which one is it?


Braniboři v Čechách (Die Brandenburger in Böhmen)
Dalibor
Libuše (Libusa)
Dvě vdovy (Zwei Witwen)
Hubička (Der Kuß)
Tajemství (Das Geheimnis)
Čertova stěna (Die Teufelswand)
Viola (Fragment)

It's Hubicka (the Kiss).

I think I only know the Moldau, but then I never can remember any titles/composers, so I may well know more by Smetana without being aware of it.

I'm sure you'll have a great weekend.

Shame it's not Dalibor, a good opera rather neglected these days

All Wexford operas are neglected ones. Some of them turn out to be good.

Did you know that the 'au' in Moldau, which is 'ava' in Czech, is an old Celtic word meaning river. You still get is as 'afon' pronounced 'avon' in Welsh, 'abhann' pronounced 'ow-en' in Irish, and á pronounced ow in Iceland.

Nothing to do with panning for gold, then?

Isn't language just fascinating?

Vltava.

Smetana's piece is a good example of nationalistic music; he got this now-famously Bohemian melody from what he thought was a Swedish folk song; but it was first published as an Italian composition 'La Mantovana' around 1600. The same tune is used for the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah.

I visited the Smetana museum in Prague a few years back. It was built on the banks of the Vltava / Moldau (the Vlt means Wild by the way) and the whole ground floor had been flooded out and all the exhibits moved upstairs making the whole thing rather cluttered.

The curators were amazed that we should visit it, as they thought nobody outside of the Czech Republic had heard of Smetana. All the signs were in Czech only. There was a huge amount about an opera we'd never heard of called Prodana Nevesta, which we eventually figured out was in fact the Bartered Bride.