La Boheme

The opera was delightful. The music was truly sublime. Hye Seoung Kwon sang the role of Mimi beautifully. What a voice she has. The other principals sang very well too (in as much as I’m able to judge). I particularly enjoyed José Carbó singing the painter, Marcello. The contemporary, grundge-style setting of what might be Paddy’s Market here or the old Spittalfields Market in London’s east end worked surprisingly well. All in all it was a good show.

Geoffrey Robinson QC was in the audience with women I took to be his author wife and their daughter. He looked quite the Bohemian lawyer himself in a brightly coloured Joe Bananas-style jacket. Jody Bruin, Director General of the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs was also there with her partner / husband (I assume, given they were so public) Roger Wilkins, former Head of the Cabinet Office in Bob Carr’s Government. The Governor’s car was there too when we left but I didn’t see her in the hall tonight. Maybe she was at José Carreras, who was singing in the Concert Hall. Of course none of these dignitaries know I’m alive and on the planet, although that’s not quite true.

Geoffrey Robinson almost did an International Day event for us in 2006 but it came to nothing in the end, largely because we couldn’t make the dates work for his summer return to Sydney. Governor Bashir attended the ‘hypothetical’ (coincidentally) at the Christopher Reeve do at Darling Harbour in 2001, so she listened to me debate spinal cord injury with Mrs Reeve, Natasha Stott-Despoja and others for over an hour but when we bump into one another at Opera first-nights she can’t remember who I am from Adam or is maybe simply too polite to interrupt and I kind of think she doesn’t need me bothering her during one of her nights off. And now that I think of it, Jody Bruin attended our launch of the Critical Bridges DVD on educational transition points and people with disability, which we staged on the 5th December 2007 in Sydney. My goodness … I’m almost famous!