Royal Opera House Family Sunday

What a fabulous day. We started at the British Museum to look at their (very tiny) Viking Hoards. From there we headed on to The Family Sunday at the Royal Opera House.

Initially this caused trauma as our backstage tour was due to be at 2pm, exactly when the Royal Ballet were doing their demonstration! We asked a 'nice gentleman' if it was possible to swap, he said that he would ask but could not guarantee anything, but to watch the ballet demo as a back stage tour can be booked again. Carys had already decided that was what we were doing anyway!

Upstairs Carys was captivated by the items from ROH archives initially from La Traviata, but then she spotted the ballet items and her jaw dropped. Her face change was so obvious that the lady explaining things to her had to laugh and admitted that it was obviously ballet and not the opera that she had come to see.

She took part in a dance workshop based on Two Pigeons. She didn't want me to dance and so ended up dancing with a complete stranger, a boy of about 11/12. Initially she was reticent, but soon had forgotten she didn't know him!

Then there was a demo of La Traviata in which she got to be someone at the party. I maybe a heathen, but that bit was probably the bit I enjoyed least. I like to be able to understand the lyrics I am listening to.

Then, for both of us, the best bit. Helen Crawford (First Soloist) and Valentino Zucchetti (First Soloist) rehearsed a Pas de Deux  from Giselle under the direction of Ricardo Cervera (Retired First Soloist and Assistant Ballet Master), all from the Royal Ballet. See extras. It was amazing to be so close to world class dancers. At this point the camera tried to chew up my card. Typically at the point I wanted it to take a very special photo. So consequently my Blip is a camera phone photo, not unusal for me, but very annoying today.

Carys went over and asked Helen when she started dancing and theyhad a little conversation. She then asked if she could have a photo with the three of them. They were extremely obliging and friendly, to the point when I told Carys to relax her shoulders, Ricardo said to her that he thought I was talking to him!

So with a very happy girl we went in search of the 'nice gentleman' who could sort out our tour. He said that he couldn't promise anything, but if anyone didn't turn up then we would be able to use those spaces, at exactly that point a man turned up saying he had two spare tickets as his wife had had to take his youngest son home. Result! So lucky.

So we saw the ballet demo and got to do the tour. We sat in the auditorium, saw Ballet Black using the rehearsal space, got a view of the back stage area.

Tour over we managed to squeeze in some of the craft activities, she made a paper pigeon and a woven heart basket and tried on some dubious headwear, then it was four o'clock and time to go home.

I am so glad we got to do this today, because it was the last Family Sunday for the next couple of years as the Opera House is about to embark on a project to open up the Linbury Studio and whilst that won't impact on the main theatre, it will impact on the ability to do this sort ofthing in the short term. In two years I think Carys will have out grown most of the activities she did today (although she will probably still be star struck from today), so this was a once in a lifetime type of day.