Wonderful

Well, that was quite excellent - with only a few minor blemishes. The brass remained woefully underrehearsed, fluffing notes and entries in all four operas. Yes, it's a difficult part; but I have heard the orchestra of the Met under Jimmy Levine and I have to tell you that there were no mistakes made there. Your bad playing is either incompetence or laziness, and I see no reason to excuse either. Frances Ginzer disappointed slightly in Götterdämmerung as she did in Die Walküre, perhaps it's a question of stamina as she started well but weakened. She was definitely straining for the notes and the volume in the final act.

But it was very moving, the final scene of the gods' ruin was beautifully staged, better even than Stuttgart which has been my favourite so far.

On the whole, the Toronto Ring was very good, among the best I've seen. I would have rated it equal to New York had the brass and Brünnhilde been a touch better. To think that the shy, clumsy, prissy, wallflowerish Toronto of my youth could have matured so far as to produce this world-standard opera in this magnificent building!

I am sad that the Ring is over, but happy to think that the next one is already only 296 days away. I've restarted the countdown for the Mariinsky Ring at the Met in New York. We saw it in Baden-Baden in 2004 and quite liked the production.

The trip hasn't been all opera, of course. I have met a few friends, had sushi and fancy coffee (and why is it so damned hard to get a plain, simple cup of coffee these days? what is wrong with coffee-flavoured coffee?) and done some shopping (clothes, books that were unlikely to be available in Europe) and now have four more days of touristing and fun before flying back. (I changed to a later flight because G and U are spending the week in France, poor things.)

Walking around the old neighbourhood is a strange experience, a mix of happy memory and present sadness. Some of my friends and contemporaries have already died, by accident or illness; many are divorced or separated and have returned to the parental nest. I thought that I recognized the fourth trumpet at the orchestra as a girl from high school, who lived three streets up the hill in a house that her father designed. It wasn't her, but the resemblance was striking. I had such a crush on her, but didn't dare speak to her because I was a nerd and she was a jockette; it would have been the death of her socially to be seen with me, so I spared myself the embarrassment of being refused. Fool. (For what it's worth, my sister who is always right says that she was a mean and spiteful bitch, so perhaps it was just as well.)

I have been channelling Proust all through the trip, seeing my memories of people in their (my) youth overlaid on their present ageing appearance to surreal and often saddening effect.

Typically Toronto: the smell of cut grass, there are no lawns in Germany; the sound and sight of aircraft flying overhead; the muted roar of traffic on the Don Valley Parkway, which is as loud and as constant at 3am as at 1pm; faces and languages (street signs) from every race on the planet; odd juxtapositions of land use and value: a two-storey brick row of houses and offices next to a thirty-storey tower.

In other news I have posted the remaining answers to the music quiz. Thanks for playing!