Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋

In desperate need of an uplift, my mum and friends Rich and Sammy decided to take me on a little advantage.
All I was told was to put on semi smart clothes (their way of saying make an effort with yourself) slap on some makeup and do your hair.
No much to go on, but the jeans went on, a pretty shirt and a little eyeliner, hair brushed but that’s about it, my hair is so long now, it’s the norm for it to be thrown into a messy bun, just to get it out the way.
I get picked up and we head to a little restaurant, we eat pasta and pizza, and chat happily, still none the wiser to where we go from here.
Mum clock watches so I know we must be on a schedule. Hmmmmm what could it be?
After a slow walk down a hill I see a beautiful building to the side of me and I know where we are going but to see what, I still don’t know.
The theatre is a wash with people, but not really my age group.🎭 That’s puzzling. 🤔
After we people watch for a while, while mum hunts for our tickets, Rich, Sammy and I laugh at being the spring chickens at the ball. We really are the youngest there.
Mum passes me my ticket and I now know what we are watching.
Omg it’s a love story, one full of pain, and death. Not my idea of fun but I have never seen a real opera so I gave it ago.

The Plot.

Madam Butterfly is sang in Italian but there were subtitles so you know what is going on. (Thank goodness for that)

The music was pretty amazing and reminded me of Sunday lunch growing up.
Mum would always play the same three cd’s on a Sunday as she cooked our Sunday lunch (one of my good childhood memories)
She either played, The Corrs, War of the worlds or Madam Butterfly. 🦋
It took me back to the smell of Roast dinners and the sound of mum trying her up most to hit the high notes as she sang along. 🤣

I’ve always had a love for The Phantom of the Opera, I’ve seen it many times at the theatre but I had never seen any others. I imagined them to be pretty full on, very loud and hard to follow. I was very wrong.

I will always remember being snuggled up in a over sized hotel bed, listening over and over again to my Phantom tape on my Walkman. A memory I hold very close to my heart.
The Phantom of the opera now hold new wonderful memories, that make it impossible to listen to.

Back to Madam Butterfly. 🦋

The plot was very, very touching and by the end, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, it was extremely moving. I swear I even saw a tear from Rich.
The leading lady aka Madam Butterfly was extraordinary, her voice touched every nerve and sent goosebumps tingling all over your body. I really can’t praise her another.
The lead man – Captain Pinkerton wasn’t as strong, if anything a little too quite, which was a shame but still he did a pretty amazing job.
For some reason, they didn’t get the standing ovation they deserved.
And boy, the lead deserved one, she put every inch of herself into her performance. It really saddened me to think of her taking her bow and not receiving the credit she deserved.
I’ve been on the other end of a few standing ovations and that feeling of pride, self-worth and even self-love is probably one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever felt. It’s a buzz that can’t be explained, it warms the soul, it truly does. She deserved to feel that, she gave her all to please her audience.

All in all, it was a pretty special evening and an eye opener to say the least.
The older generation, are so bloody long in the tooth, so high and blooming mighty, that they can’t give credit where credit is due and that saddens me to the bone.