‘Five minutes to curtain up, take your positions and all quiet back stage, thank you.’
Quietly and efficiently, phones were put away and various cast members took to the stage while others got into position in the wings ready for their cue, as relaxed as ever. I marvelled at how slick and professional it was, but then this was the Royal Opera House, so I guess it had to be.
The orchestra started, the curtain went up and as the opera began I snuck forward to watch from the wings at the front of the stage. The auditorium was packed, with every single one of the 2,256 seats taken. I felt nervous just standing there watching the performance, and I wasn’t even on stage. I was just feet away from the limelight, it would be so easy to just walk out onto the stage, wave or take a bow. It was the same dizzy sort of feeling you get when you’re standing at the top of a tall building and imagine jumping off. After a few minutes I started getting used to my hidden vantage point, enjoying the unique privilege of the opportunity. Before long Pollyanne and John came on for Act One and then in no time they were back off stage, having delivered, as far as I could tell, another faultless performance. I wandered back over to join them. John took no time in removing Pollyanne’s costume to give her a brief rest, as they wouldn’t be needed for the rest of the first half. Pollyanne, so familiar with the routine, settled back into her hay net.
At the end of Act Two the screen came down to signal the interval. The hive of activity from the audience drowned out any noise that we made and so we were able to start talking normally again.
‘Time for a coffee, I reckon. Would you like one?’ John asked. ‘If you stay with Pollyanne, I’ll pop and get one.’
‘Sure, thanks.’
John disappeared with most of the cast as they headed to the dressing rooms. A few people stayed to engage with Pollyanne, who turned to greet her admirers. She never seemed to tire of the attention. The stagehands busied themselves on stage and in the wings as they altered the set for the second half.
John soon returned with coffees.
‘Enjoying it so far?’ he asked as he handed me one.
‘The whole experience is amazing. I still can’t quite believe I’m backstage at the Royal Opera House,’ I confessed. ‘It’s all a bit surreal.’
‘You have to go on stage after the performance, when everyone has gone. It’s incredible to look out at all the seats. It’s only then that you realize quite how special this place is.’
‘I’ll be sure to do that.’
Coffees finished, John set about getting Pollyanne ready again, and the cast started filtering back, several in new costumes.
‘Five minutes to curtain up for the second half, positions please.’
Once again the cast swiftly took their places and minutes later the orchestra erupted in its full glory. Up went the curtain, and the second half was under way.
Again I watched parts of it from the wings, although I found myself tiring of the limited view. If there were any tickets left for any of the performances, I vowed to come back and see it properly. As the opera reached it climax, I wandered down the wing to the back of the stage where Samantha was holding Louis with Gábor Bretz, who played Escamillo, already mounted up to ride on stage for the grand finale.
As the final notes died away, the audience erupted in delight at the evening’s entertainment. The cast took their repeated bows and then the curtain descended and all was over. Immediately a fever of activity broke out behind the curtain as the stagehands started striking the set. Carmen was not on again till Saturday, and in the meantime The Royal Ballet would be performing Romeo and Juliet, so things had to be dismantled for the stages to be switched around. I watched in amazement at the efficiency of the operation. After about twenty minutes of organized chaos the stage was completely empty, revealing quite how vast the space actually was. The curtain then rose to reveal the now empty auditorium, I tentatively left my seat by Pollyanne’s pen and headed to the front of the stage, looking out across the stalls, the grand tier, balcony and amphitheatre. John was right: it truly was breathtaking. I thought of the catalogue of world-famous ballerinas and opera singers who had performed on this very stage. And then I wondered how many vets had stood where I was standing.
Donkeys: fast facts
Equus africanus asinus: The donkey
Distribution: There are 185 different breeds of donkey across the world, but the greatest populations are found in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They all originate from the now endangered African wild ass, which is found in Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.
Names: An adult male is called a ‘jack’, a female a ‘jenny’, and the young a ‘foal’. A male donkey can be crossed with a female horse to produce a mule, and a male horse can be crossed with a female donkey to produce a hinny. A group of donkeys is called a ‘drove’.
Life span: About 30–50 years.
Habitat: Their natural aptitude is for arid or semi-arid climates, but their resilience and usefulness as a working animal means they have adapted to survive in most environments.
Diet: They are grazers, naturally feeding on grass and scrub and although, like the horse their food is broken down by microbial action in the hind gut, their digestive system is more efficient, allowing them to survive on a much poorer-quality diet.
Gestation: 11–14 months.
Weight: Foals weigh 8–16 kg, growing to 80–480 kg as adults, depending on the breed.
Growth: Although a jenny can come into heat as soon as 9 days after a foal is born, she won’t naturally mate until the foal is weaned at about 6 months. Jacks reach puberty at about 10 months, and jennys at about 2 years, but neither are fully grown until about 3 years.
Body temperature: 36.2–37.8 °C.
Interesting fact: The donkey has been used as a working animal for over 5,000 years and, after human labour, they are the cheapest form of agricultural power.
Conservation: There are an estimated 40 million donkeys worldwide, about 96 per cent of them in undeveloped countries. In 2006, 27 per cent of the global population of donkeys lived in China but this has now reduced to 7.5 per cent, following growing demand for donkey meat and donkey-hide gelatin, ‘ejiao’, which can sell for about £300 per kg. This has led to donkeys being traded from Africa where they are often kept in appalling conditions. Brooke is an incredible equine charity that seeks to relieve the suffering of donkeys and mules all across the third world: www.thebrooke.org. The Island Farm Donkey Sanctuary also does a wonderful job in caring for neglected donkeys within the UK: www.donkeyrescue.co.uk.
12
FERRET
‘Ferrets, they are the most lovely noble darlings in the world.’
D. H. Lawrence
‘I’ve just booked you an emergency,’ Hazel said, popping her head round the door of my consulting room. ‘It’s a ferret. Apparently he’s behaving very strangely, and the owners are worried and are bringing him straight down.’
‘OK, thanks,’ I replied, wiping down the table between patients. It was not an unusual scenario to have an emergency in the middle of a consulting list; it was all part of the job. If you were fully booked then you prioritized it. There was no A&E facility, so sometimes it meant other clients had to wait, but most understood, taking the view that if it was their animal they would want the vet to see it first. With this particular emergency it looked like I would be lucky. I had half an hour’s gap after my next patient so hopefully I wouldn’t get too behind, and with that thought I cast the emergency out of my mind and walked out into the waiting room.
‘Sam White?’ I enquired. The only animal in the room was a boisterous and excited, slightly rotund chocolate Labrador accompanied by a man in his thirties dressed in jeans, shirt and puffer jacket and a boy of about six who was dressed as a mini version of his dad.