Yesterday in Cardiff I enjoyed the truly excellent WNO production of The Magic Flute.
Apart from the story, everything about it (cast, costumes, sets and, of course, the music) was truly wonderful and\or uplifting.
This morning I woke to the news that Paul Flynn, my schooldays’ contemporary and later comrade and friend, had succumbed to the rheumatoid arthritis that has afflicted him for decades. I at once recalled a conversation we had had about this farrago of operatic nonsense.
Underlying a simple boy-and-girl-fall-in-love-and-face-tribulations-on-the-way-to-happiness story, there are implicit and occasional explicit racist and sexist and Masonic themes that neither of us were comfortable hearing.
Paul summed up our joint disquiet with – “Best just listen to the music. That’s what will endure.“
The same may be said of today’s defection of seven Labour MPs.
Dr John Cox blogs 