Bermondsey is between Tower Bridge and London Bridge on the south side of the river. It has always been an interesting area - the variety of restaurants, galleries and museums attest to that. A friend dragged me to an eatery on a Sunday evening - Village East - where we had a delightful dinner.
There is a homely unpretentious feel to the place. A bar fronts the restaurant (a trend that's returning to London after an absence of a decade or so), with dining tables sprawling the irregular space. The menu is Modern British - simple dishes well cooked. I had mackerels on a bed of mash and chopped choriso sausages - very nice. My glass of prosecoe unexpectedly arrived in a wide-mouth champagne glass - the kind you used to see in B&W films!
What was enjoyable? The ambiance, the staff and the unpretentious food. It was a Sunday night and they had run out of a few ingredients - it's nice to know not everything was coming from the deep freezer.
What was not enjoyable? Nothing really.
Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique started this BBC Proms concert with Le corsaire - it was tightly played and a sonorous sound. I wonder whether this was due to the whole orchestra standing up while playing had anything to do with it. It sounded good.
Joyce DiDonato first sang La mort de Cléopâtre - her performance was mesmerising due to her dramatic delivery of text and the wonderful lines. Sir John was ever sensitive to the flow of the music. Dido’s death scene was short, yet no less powerful with DiDonata's breadth of emotions. Some may moan about her over dramatic delivery at the expense of pitch accuracy - but that's just nitpicking.
The second half of the concert was Harold in Italy - a whimsical and eclectic piece that's interesting to listen to - but I wonder whether this should have been played in the 1st half of the concert.
Joyce DiDonato first sang La mort de Cléopâtre - her performance was mesmerising due to her dramatic delivery of text and the wonderful lines. Sir John was ever sensitive to the flow of the music. Dido’s death scene was short, yet no less powerful with DiDonata's breadth of emotions. Some may moan about her over dramatic delivery at the expense of pitch accuracy - but that's just nitpicking.
The second half of the concert was Harold in Italy - a whimsical and eclectic piece that's interesting to listen to - but I wonder whether this should have been played in the 1st half of the concert.
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