R.A.D. StainforthI have just booked my first session with the shrink for my vertigo/agoraphobia. It’s on Thursday. I’m really quite pleased with myself and shall report on progress. (Well, at least on the bits not involving my being traumatized by the death of my first pet.)
Last year my vertigo deprived me of two thirds of Siegfried. Perhaps I should be grateful. The bench seat in the gods at the Royal Opera House was always going to be a challenge, but I was fine with Das Rheingold two days earlier. When I got up there it was nausea, dizziness, increasingly unreliable muscles – the business. I had to sit it out until the last act, by which time a considerable amount of alcohol had had a beneficial effect and I could at least stand against the wall at the back, clinging to a rail, and listen, sweating and moaning. Oh, and just about see the surtitles. Fuck.
This thing can be seriously debilitating.
Tags: covent garden, london, rheingold, royal opera house, siegfried, vertigo, wagner
