Queen Elisabeth Musical Voyage

There’s an old saying that declares cruises are either for newlyweds or the nearly dead – I am of neither category, but yet I have always loved cruises. It isn’t a passion for the sea or the need to pursue any water sport that fuels this penchant; but I do love the idea of visiting numerous different places without the burden and stress of packing and unpacking.



I chose to travel this time with the Queen Elisabeth College of Music, an encore voyage after a most memorable first in October of 2007. Back in 2007, I saw an advertisement in the now-defunct French classical-music magazine, Le Monde de la Musique, describing a music-themed journey on board the Silver Cloud, one of the Silversea fleet. Historically, music cruises seem to have been held on decent (if average) ships, so the fact that the College had chosen Silversea, one of the best cruise lines in the world, to host this experience, was a sign that the sophistication was going to be kicked up a notch.
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Madam Butterfly

My mother dragged me to the Palais Garnier (Paris Opera House) for a performance of Puccini’s “Madam Butterfly” when I was in my early teens. It was supposed to be a treat, and my initiation to Opera.



I came out completely exhausted, after sitting through over two hours of unintelligible singing in a language I couldn’t comprehend – and subtitles didn’t exist in those days. The storyline was pure soap. The heroine, who was about my age, must have had some sort of eating disorder as she looked well over 100 kilograms, which might explain, I thought, why her American husband ran away for a slimmer bride.

Since then, I’ve developed a more profound appreciation of opera and experienced half a dozen or so productions of Madam Butterfly.

I was in London in June, when the ENO (English National Opera) revived Anthony Minghella’s Olivier Award-winning Madam Butterfly as a tribute to the late film director, who first staged the show together with his Hong Kong-born choreographer wife Carolyn Choa in 2005.
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La Folle Journée

Literally meaning “the crazy day”, the Japanese organizers have re-named this wonderful series of classical musical concerts “The Days of Enthusiasm”.



“La Folle Journée” originated in the north-western French city of Nantes in 1995. The brainchild of arts advocate René Martin, its aim was to make classical music accessible to the public by way of initiating shorter concerts with cheaper tickets, and an exciting, distinctive theme each year.

The concept was brought to Tokyo in 2005, and for three days in May this year, under the inspiring theme of “Bach is Back”, a total of 300 concerts were performed by 1,500 artists from 9am to 11pm at eight venues within the Tokyo International Forum. Each concert lasted about 45 minutes and tickets ranged from 500 yen (around US$5) to 4,000 yen (around $40).
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