Front page news: Soprano flat again! Flat on the floor, that is.
Sopranos think they are the most important element in a choir, as they carry the melody. There are always lots of Sopranos. Altos despise Sopranos because they know that their part is much more difficult. Tenors are always the smallest group in a choir because few men can reach the high notes, so tenors believe they are special. Basses despise Tenors because it is much more macho to sing bass. The Maestro despises them all because he is in charge but nobody ever watches him when he conducts. It is almost surprising that in Aperitivo’s Murder in the Choir there is only one corpse. Performances: June 1st at the Casa do Povo, Moncarapacho; June 14th and 15th at the Museum, São Brás. For more information email aperitivo.info@gmail.com
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Just my little joke! Detective Sergeant Singer is in charge of the investigation - and as if that isn't bad enough, he has brought along Detective Constable Snuff...
SINGER Hey, that’s important! Make a note, Snuff! SNUFF Yes chief. What note? SINGER Well, since we’re dealing with a choir, Snuff, maybe it should be... La! Eh? La? Get it? SNUFF La? SINGER Yes, like: la, la, la, laaaah! SNUFF La la la laaah? SINGER Yes. SNUFF How many La’s is that? SINGER It doesn’t matter. Now let me think.... SNUFF (counts on fingers) la la la laaah. It’s four La’s, Sarge. And while we're on the subject of La... Why does a bass always wait outside the door? He can’t find the key and doesn’t know when to come in. Performances of Murder in the Choir: June 1st at the Casa do Povo, Moncarapacho; June 14th and 15th at the Museum, São Brás. For more information email aperitivo.info@gmail.com Sweetness and Light in the Library Thraxton library, under the aegis of Miss Prunes, is always the centre of gossip, scandal and slander. And when Miss Prodnose and Miss Snipe finish picking holes in the other members of the library choir, they can always bitch at each other.
PRODNOSE But, Miss Prunes, how did you think the choir sounded last night? I thought the altos were terribly unbalanced. SNIPE Unbalanced! What can you expect with Mrs Alton singing so loudly? I was standing next to her and I couldn’t hear myself at all. But at least the altos were singing the right notes, which is more than can be said for the sopranos. Ah! What a wonderful thing is Harmony. Which reminds me... How many tenors does it take to change a light bulb? Just one. He holds the bulb and the world revolves around him.  How many basses does it take to change a lightbulb?
None - they are so macho they prefer to walk in the dark. Mr. Profundo is the bass soloist of the Thraxton Village Choir. As Mr. Profundo himself says, "we basses carry the tragedy of the piece". And his admiring wife agrees. Not everyone is quite as admiring, of course. Mr. Carmichael the tenor refers to Mr. Profundo as 'the singing bear in the next room', and explains why all basses have beards: "It’s something to do with voice production I believe, the notes get lost in all the hair and eventually emerge several tones lower." However Mr. Profundo and Mr. Carmichael do have something in common - both are under suspicion of murder! Performances of Aperitivo's MURDER IN THE CHOIR: June 1st at the Casa do Povo, Moncarapacho; June 14th and 15th at the Museum, São Brás. For more information email: aperitivo.info@gmail.com  Oh dear! Mr. Dupont has written a new choral work, and his rich wife has arranged for it to be put on in London, but who is this guest singer that Mr. Dupont insists should sing the Soprano solos?
Find out in Murder in the Choir! By the way - How many Sopranos does it take to change a lightbulb? Two - one to screw it in, and the other to say - Isn't that a little high for you, dear? It had to happen... with so many members of Aperitivo also being members of the local choir, eventually there was bound to be a clash, and then -  Rehearsals begin soon for the next, eagerly awaited, Aperitivo Murder Mystery!
But don't worry about the murder - it is a well known fact that old musicians never die, they just de-compose. The Family Frankenstein... The creation of the concept of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster was almost as outrageous as the creation of the monster itself.
That an eighteen year old English girl, of 'good' family, was wandering around Europe in the company of her lover was shocking enough in the early 1800s. Her parents, although forward-thinking intellectuals, cannot have been at all happy about it. Then the girl - Mary Godwin - and her lover went to stay in Switzerland with that most scandalous of men - George, Lord Byron, whose love affair with the equally scandalous Lady Caroline Lamb was the delighted gossip of London (it was bad enough when Lady Caroline, a married woman, dressed up in man’s clothes to pursue Byron in the guise of his page; when she took all her clothes off for a surprise appearance among the dishes on the dining table she certainly got everyone’s attention - except that of Byron who had been doing his best to avoid her for some time.) Byron, Mary Godwin and her lover, Percy Shelley (they later married), and John Polidori, Byron’s personal doctor, decided to pass the time in their Swiss villa by writing horror stories. The two poets did well - the two amateurs did better: Polidori eventually produced the first vampire story, and Mary Godwin wrote the story of Frankenstein, the scientific genius who builds a monster and electrifies him into life. Since then, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster has spawned an entire genre. The story was copied, plagiarised, turned into a theatre play (none of the profits went to Mary) and appears to be as popular today as it ever was, 200 years ago. With the 200th anniversary of the story, in 2014, the Monster gained a new lease of life and one result was that two of the theatre groups in the Algarve both decided - quite independently - that Frankenstein’s monster was just what was needed to liven up the winter months. The Algarvians are putting on Frankenstein - the Panto, in March 2016, and the same month sees the birth of Dr. and Mrs. Frankenstein’s little boy in Aperitivo’s Transylvania Dreaming. We in Aperitivo are not restricting ourselves to the troubles of the Family Frankenstein, however. Working on the principle that you can never have too many monsters, we have cast our net wide and dragged in vampires, werewolves, King Kong, Gollum and a very odd band of foxhunters. Aperitivo’s annual winter extravaganza has the reputation of being a little crazed, and Transylvania Dreaming certainly continues the trend. Tickets - 8euros for theatre alone, or 12euros including chilli and a Bloody Mary - are available for the following performances: Museum, São Brás: Friday February 26th, Saturday 27th February 2016 Clube de Tavira: Saturday 5th March, Sunday 6th March Casa do Povo, Moncarapacho: Saturday 12th March  Finally Jane got to pretend she was Jane Austen at our Regency-style Summer Ball. It was a beautiful evening and a lovely atmosphere - click on the Summer Ball page to see some of our nice photos.
 Should Alberich the sulphur dwarf fall for one of the magical Rhinedaughters -
or will they just slip through his fingers? Alberich meets the Rhinedaughters in the opening scene of Bi-Cycle, our hilarious spoof on Wagner's Ring Cycle, performances 13, 14, 19, 20, 21 February. |
Jane PageWhat else to do on long Winter evenings? Plan the next play of course! Archives
January 2019
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