Opera outdoors, 21 June

About a thousand people gathered on a balmy and clear Sunday to listen to some opera at the Palm Valley at the Botanic Gardens.

Most came with picnic baskets, nibbled on cheese, sipped their wine and caught up on gossip between Delibes and Donizetti, while the kids ran around the trees. It really was an enchanted evening.

I do hope this is going to be a regular event, and also that the singers wear something bright and colourful the next time around; we could barely see them and we weren't sitting too far away.

If there is going to be another edition, we also hope to hear about it in advance. One way would have been more signs in the gardens itself. There were benches all around advertising the garden festival which is more than a month away and not a single sign about Opera in the Park, not even one piddly directional sign.

Update on Friday, June 27, 2008 at 12:22AM by MamaSez

While on the Botanics, feeding the ducks and turles at the eco lake - or for that matter in many water bodies here - is a popular pastime for kids. I just remembered a friend saying that these must be the best-fed ducks and turtles in Singapore. And I wonder how many folks throw in appropriate food rather than just bits of bread. The monkeys around Macritchie are said to have become this aggressive because of people feeding them. I wonder what effect all the food thrown into the water has on the ducks and turtles at the eco lake.

ToyBox rocks Amadeus

I think I've mentioned before how much we love Reuben and Mark, the duo that are ToyBox. So, though we'd been to the Mozart exhibition at the National Museum last month, we decided to book ourselves into the Museum Toddler special session  last Sunday too. And what fun we had!

The exhibition is geared to slightly older children so even though LO enjoyed the dress-up in a glittery skirt, sitting in the carriage and romping on the bed, I don't think she quite got what it was about the first time around.

Museum Toddlers changed all that. Reuben and Mark did some warm-up sing alongs and then delved into who Mozart was. I liked what they did but didn't realize till later how cleverly they explained Mozart.

Reuben first dressed up in a shiny glove and hat and did a disco number before donning a wig, ruffles and long coat to enter into his Mozart persona, replete with a mole and a faux German accent, before conducting a piece of music. We then had a guided tour through the exhibition. All very fun and terribly entertaining.

But wonder of wonders, LO still talks of Mozart a few days after the show and how he wore a white wig and conducted music. What more can one ask for.
 
Unfortunately their last Mozart session on the 29th is booked out. The good news is that ToyBox do regular themed Museum Toddler sessions every Sunday. More details here.

Stories to Grow - review

We went to watch Stories to Grow at Act 3 this morning. Turned out to be everything I expected and much more - and importantly, LO enjoyed it hugely too. No wonder the theatrette was packed. Simple stories told with a lot of love in a very ingenious way using puppets made with lots of love. The lighting and music helped set the pace and mood, which is really important for a non-verbal piece, and the performers - one of whom had the same tragicomic face as Roberto Benigni of Life is Beautiful fame - were stalwarts.

I'm glad that I took LO to it even if the show said it was for over 4s. There was one story with an environmental message - about cutting a tree - which LO talked about the whole day. There are two more shows tomorrow - Sunday, May 25.

Now if they can only get those plastic child booster seats that SRT has. With the slippery foam ones at Act 3, most kids ended up on their parents' laps.