Doesn’t everyone dash off to London for a long weekend when a friend’s opera is being performed there? Well, that’s who we’ve become. Our friend Thea Musgrave is a Scottish national who has lived in the U.S. for decades. To say she’s an important composer is something of an understatement: in 2002 Queen Elizabeth II named her a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and in 2017 she was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music, all in recognition of her contributions to British arts. So when the English National Opera announced they were producing her “Mary, Queen of Scots” several of her friends announced that if she was going we would too.

It’s worth noting that the question of whether Thea and her husband Peter would go was of no small curiosity. Thea, you see, is 96 years old and at this point traveling across the ocean is no small issue. But this was worth it so off we all went. It was great fun traveling with a bunch of friends, though sadly it meant that we were pretty booked up the whole time and didn’t even get to see old friends who live in London.

The opera, I should add, was really great. Modern and somewhat atonal but still approachable. The staging was distinctly minimalistic in light of the English National Opera’s financial struggle but the singing was without question world class. And importantly – for me this is a big distinction between contemporary opera and the 19th century classics – the story was tight and compelling. Mary became the Scottish Queen at the ripe age of six days (that’s right, six days old) when her father James V died. She was shipped off to France at age six, betrothed to the guy who would become Francis II. He reigned for less than two years though before dying so she returned to Scotland at age 19 to rule as was her right by birth.

The opera covers the next six years as she tries – unsuccessfully – to fend off the powerful men who would usurp her power and authority. That tension and power dynamic make for an intense and thoroughly modern drama absent from older operas. It’s worth noting that while ultimately Mary failed to protect her crown – she fled to England where ultimately Elizabeth I had her beheaded (kind of the definition of a failed strategy) – she did succeed in one important way. Her son ultimately ruled as James VI of Scotland and, with the death of Elizabeth, James I of England. During his reign he supervised what became known as the King James Version of the Bible and lived as a raging homosexual, but that’s a story for another time.

OK, back now to our London trip. The opera was really good, the audience loved it, and it got really positive reviews. The crowning glory though was after the cast had taken their bows. While they were still on stage the artistic director came out and announced that they were honored to have the composer there in person. And then the spotlight hit Thea’s bright white hair as she stood and waved while the audience went wild. On and on the applause rolled, a five-minute standing ovation for our friend. I have to admit I had tears just running down my face, so proud of Thea and imagining what it must be like at age 96 to have that experience. A moment I will never forget – and will probably tear up at whenever I think about it.

But of course there’s more to do in London than just go to one opera. The day we arrived Thea was being honored at the House of Lords and the eight or 10 of us from New York were invited along for the event. Sadly, I’d been diagnosed with bronchitis the day before we left New York so I really didn’t feel as though I could go – I didn’t want to tire myself out and I really didn’t want to expose our elderly friends to my germs. Mark made it, though, and said it was a pretty cool event. I mean, it was the House of Lords!

Oddly, we saw another little opera while we were in London. Entirely coincidentally an old friend of mine from Minneapolis was involved in the production of an obscure little opera literally the night before Thea’s debut so off we went to see Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Dream Lovers.” It was a fun little escapade, reviving a lost 19th century piece, but not exactly the opera one would fly across the Atlantic for. But watching the production and then having dinner with Laura and her wife Mary was a great evening.

And still there was more music. Our NY friends Mary Beth and Sven came along as well, in part of course to see Thea’s opera, but also because their son Luca is in his third year as a pianist at the Royal Academy of Music. So one afternoon Luca performed a 45-minute piano recital for maybe a dozen of us. Now obviously I have an amateur’s ear but even for me it was obvious what a changed musician he is since he left high school less than three years ago.

Oh, and one more musical interlude. Since we were in London for five nights and only had two of them taken up by operas we bought tickets for “Les Misérables” which has been playing in the West End (London’s equivalent of Broadway) for nearly 40 years. We saw it on Broadway probably 20 years ago or more and loved it then … and loved it again this time. Just an epic story with grand music and staging.

And then there were the group outings. A group dinner at an Ottolenghi restaurant that Mary Beth & Sven love (and that I missed while nursing my illness). A group lunch at an Indian restaurant in the very cool Brick Lane neighborhood. An art exhibit centered in 1504 Florence where Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Raphael all crossed paths. The British Museum. The Tate gallery to see dozens of Turner paintings.

All in all it was a pretty hectic few days. For the first time ever though, I feel as though I started to get to know London. And definitely enjoyed it. From here we’re taking the train to Paris for five days and I find myself thinking “Why don’t we do this London/Paris trip more often?” Why not indeed.

We spent the last two weeks of April and the first few days of May on our first foreign trip since landing in New York last January. The main goal was taking my brother and sister-in-law to Italy, but we decided to tack on a few days in London at the start of things. Oddly, in our 68-month adventure around the world (and around and around) we never once set foot in England. And since we have a friend there we wanted to visit, this was as good a time as any to stop by.

First, the friends. The first night we had dinner and drinks with Matt, a former employee who had since moved to London. Forgot to take pictures while we were talking and catching up, though, so nothing to see here.

Next up was a day with Luba and Natasha. We met them when we biked in Japan back in April 2017. A native Russian, Luba lives in London now and we’ve been eager to visit. She was joined on the bike trip by her childhood friend Natasha who was then still living in Moscow. Fast forward two years and Natasha has moved to Germany but entirely coincidentally was, with her six-year-old son Maxim, visiting Luba the same weekend we were there. So we got to see both of them!

You never know with something like that if the fun we had in Japan was a one-off deal, something about the bike trip or whatever, but we just had a fabulous time with the three of them. Little Maxim was cute; he didn’t speak English nor could he understand my very rudimentary German or Mark’s more accomplished Russian. Still, somehow we got along just fine. And visiting with Luba and Natasha – walking around, hanging out in a park, dinner – was just total fun. So that was good.

And, needless to say, there are some great museums in London. We managed to spend a lot of time in the British Museum and the National Gallery, both great museums, along with a shorter visit to the National Portrait Gallery for a good refresher course in post-Tudor England.

One of the interesting things to observe in the British Museum is their (appropriate) sensitivity to the issue of whether some of the items there – particularly the “Elgin Marbles” acquired (looted?) from the Greek Parthenon in the early 19th century – belong there. Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin, claimed that he had permission, an official decree, from the central government of the Ottoman empire, who then occupied Greece. That document has never been found, though, notwithstanding that there are a wealth of documents from that period.

Meanwhile, the British Museum is careful to point out that other pieces from the Parthenon are in the Louvre, the National Museum in Copenhagen, and of course the Acropolis Museum in Athens. They explain that the sculptures that remain are “divided roughly equally” between London and Athens and that in fact they “cannot for conservation reasons be returned to the temple. Even those that have until recently remained on the building are now being removed to the New Acropolis Museum.” Umm, the issue is returning them to Greece, not to the elements on the Acropolis. And the fact that other museums have very modest collections of these sculptures is a very different issue from having fully half of the remaining sculptures. To put it mildly, the Museum’s justifications didn’t convince me.

Okay, so some controversy. Nevertheless we definitely need to make London a more-frequent destination.