Sydney
12.9.67
Dear
Mother, Another day spent wandering hither and yon – gee, I think I’ll go in
for the long distance walk soon!
Breakfast
– got the worst waitress every today – and for once I was down comparatively
early – I might as well have gone down at my usual late hour. That’s the worst
thing altogether about this hotel – there’s only one or two decent (that is,
quick) waitresses in the lot – and I never
get ‘em. [Boy, what a snob!]
Decided
to make use of Ricordi’s again, so spent another hour in there.
 |
| El Alamein Fountain |
Came
back to K.C. for lunch and watched a fellow in a white bathing suit blithely
step into the El Alamein fountain, take a short (very cold) shower and step out
again, whence he started to dry himself on an enormous striped towel, that,
along with his briefcase, seemed to be all he had! He was there traipsing
around the fountain, looking like a latter-day prophet for about 10 minutes
before a cop told him to leave. The prophet then splashed water in all
directions (not at the cop) and went
stalking off, presumably mumbling something about his rights as a citizen!
About
one, a quartet, with a piano, from the State Opera Co came and performed a
group of about 16 songs (mainly love, and only 2 of which were from operas!) in
the Fitzroy Gardens (where the Fountain is) over a loudspeaker, which meant
their voices bounced beautifully off the surrounding buildings – quite a lot of
people stayed!
Back
into town and during the course of the afternoon I disposed of practically
everybody on Robin Lovejoy’s list! The State Opera Co is now actually defunct –
don’t know where the quartet fits in; the Conservatorium of Music has pretty
well finished for the year as far as opera goes; the Opera Centre are
interested, but already have a pianist, and would only require part-time work;
Rochdale Opera Co are in the same boat; the ABC don’t need another pianist!!! So I might really just as well come home –
unless the Trust turns up trumps; but I don’t think they will till next year.
So – I
was going to go to the Opera again (Don
Pasquale) but couldn’t stand it straight away again, [another opera, that is] so went to Half a Sixpence which is based on Kipps instead. Not as good as Oliver
but still with plenty of pep, and some
easily memorable tunes. Nice relaxing night. [I thought I’d seen this already in Dunedin – maybe I did later.]
Decided
I’d better start doing something about German, since I’ll be required to have a
basic idea of it, and Italian, if I work with the Trust (they do all their operas in the original languages), so I bought a Teach
Yourself, and went quite well on the first lesson!
See ya,
Mike
