Royal Albert Hall, London. Monday 01-September-2025.
Our flight back to Italy was early afternoon on the 2nd September. We were coming down from Penrith by train and decided to avoid any risk of delays and missed flights by travelling the day before. That gave us a free evening in London so Mary booked us tickets for the Proms.
We decided to treat ourselves to the Paddington Hilton so we would have an easy trip to Heathrow on the Paddington Express the next morning.
This hotel was formerly the Great Western Royal Hotel for GWR as evidenced by the tiles in front of the entrance.
The route from the hotel to the Royal Albert Hall took us on a lovely stroll through Hyde Park.
We encountered a Rolls Royce ice cream van but didn't stop for an ice cream as it was closed (boo!)
At the Royal Albert Hall this version of Shostakovich’s “The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” was a semi staged production. So not a full blown opera version but the singers did move about the stage with various props arrayed and acted out the story rather than simply stand there and sing. A piece we knew nothing about so it was bound to be a surprise.
We had good seats in one of the Loggia boxes in line with the front of the stage and the promenaders at the front of the arena. We booked ourselves some in-house catering: the vegan tapas selection washed down with a couple of glass of white wine. The plot is right out of EastEnders with infidelity, rape, a couple of murders and a double murder / suicide to finish off with!
The Guardian gave it four stars and wrote: "With Nicky Spence and Amanda Majeski the striking leads, the nastiness in Shostakovich’s ‘tragic satire’ was disturbing and powerful in an impressive Proms performance. [...] nothing was more striking or disturbing than the interaction between Spence’s Sergey and Amanda Majeski’s Katerina: the former heroically clarion even while dramatically faithless, the latter a terrifyingly lyrical portrait of a woman “so bored I could hang myself” - or, as it turns out, commit murder.." [Full review].
On the way back to the hotel we passed a cocktail bar, Amaro, and popped in for a tasty but expensive nightcap.
Well that was a fun evening!
The next morning we wandered out for a breakfast shakshouka at Hayat, supporting locals rather than pay for an overpriced Hilton breakfast. On the way back to pick up our luggage we passed this lovely statue: "Wild Table of Love".
We also saw this encouraging sign, "Drinking Rum before 10am makes you a Pirate not an Alcoholic"!
After that it was back to the hotel to collect our luggage and head off to Heathrow for the flight back to Italy.
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