The Dawn Chorus: A goose and its conker, naked rollerskating nuns and a £4.2 million bronze buck

A night (to forget) at the opera

When one goes to the opera, one imagines that you are to be presented with one of humanity’s finest art forms. A hypnotising blend of beautiful costumes, pitch-perfect singing and tales about love and loss, usually in a setting so elegant that it would bring tears to the eyes of those present. I wouldn’t know, to be honest, as I don’t go to the opera. 

What I would not expect, and it certainly seems that at least 18 members of the audience of the opera in Stuttgart did not expect, is naked roller skating nuns, real blood, and ‘explicit sex scenes’. I might now go to the opera.

The production in question is called Sancta, and it was reported by Classicfm.com (where else would you get your news) that 18 members of the audience required medical attention after the performance a few weeks ago. Sancta is a work by Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger, which ‘combines Paul Hindemith’s one-act opera Sancta Susanna with elements of the Catholic liturgy to create a radical vision of the Holy Mass ritual’. I have never been to mass either, I wonder what else I’ve been missing out on.

Hindemith’s original opera was considered so scandalous that one contemporary critic, Karl Grunsky, wrote that the performance ‘signifies a desecration of our cultural institutions’. Ms. Holzinger obviously saw that as a challenge, rather than a warning, when she adapted it.

‘On Saturday we had eight and on Sunday we had 10 people who had to be looked after by our visitor service,’ said the opera’s spokesperson, Sebastian Ebling. 

‘We recommend that all audience members once again very carefully read the warnings so they know what to expect,’ Mr Ebling told the Stuttgarter Nachrichten. ‘If you have questions, speak to the visitor service,’ Ebling added. ‘And when in doubt during the performance, it might help to avert your gaze.’

According to Classicfm.com, ‘audiences should be prepared for a wild night which makes Tosca look like an episode of Father Brown’. A nice little opera joke there, which I don’t understand.

Goosing around

I was of the opinion that conkers were toxic and should not be eaten by humans or animals. Someone should probably tell that to this goose at Winkworth Arboretum, who seems to be thrilled with the horse chestnut it's popped in its bill.

Nature is not always beautiful

Recently, we published in print and online a rather cute feature about otters. Shakespeare referred to them as neither fish nor flesh. I wrote a headline that described them as ‘beguiling’. Writer Laura Parker noted that, ‘a bright-eyed and bewhiskered otter face, with its small, round, lowset ears, is hard not to love’. We love otters, basically. They are cute and have nice eyes and they swim around and look adorable.

One person, however, who might not agree is Steven Smith from Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire, who woke up on the weekend to find 25 of his prized koi carp dead and scattered around his garden. He is blaming the ‘massacre’, as he described it to the BBC, squarely on otters.

‘The first thing I saw was what I thought was a bunch of leaves. When I got closer it turned out to be one of the koi,’ said Mr Smith. ‘As I stepped over the wall I noticed there were a couple to the left, more to the right, and when I looked in the pond there was no movement at all.’

‘I took a walk around the pond and almost every fish that I had was lying there headless, fins ripped off them, faces ripped off them,’ he said. ‘It was just a massacre as far as I was concerned.’

Mr Smith added that he lost his entire collection of 25 fish, which he estimates cost him £10,000 over the years he’s spent collecting them. 13 bodies were found, while 12 others are missing.

Quiz of the day

1) The word ‘cereal’ is derived from the name of the Roman goddess of agriculture — what is it?

2) The ghost town of Pripyat was evacuated due to which disaster?

3) Which Greek pudding is made from filo pastry, chopped nuts and honey?

4) Abel Magwitch appears in which Dickens novel?

5) What does the word ‘agflation’ refer to?

In awe of an aquamanile

Continuing on from this week’s theme of ‘expensive statues of animals’, someone paid £4.2 million for this glorious and exceptionally rare Islamic bronze aquamanile, which is a rendering of a buck from the 8th century Umayyad period. 

‘This statuesque bronze buck has captivated all those who have seen it since we first exhibited it in Dubai and then in London, testament to its star power 1,200 years on from when it was made,’ said Benedict Carter, head of Islamic & Indian Art at Sotheby’s London. ‘As a striking work of art, it exudes great presence and energy, demonstrating highly skilled craftsmanship alongside a superb state of preservation. The field of Islamic art is one that is varied and full of opportunity, and we were particularly thrilled to be able to bring such an exceptional object of rarity to the fore.’

Property of the day

Usually, we feature some of the finest houses for sale across the nation on this part of the Dawn Chorus. Today, however, we are featuring this crumbling, one-bedroom wreck in north London. It has an energy efficiency rating of 1/100. It barely has ceilings or walls. The brickwork is, for want of a better word, lamentable. It has just sold for £2 million. No, I don't know either.

That's all for today, we'll be back tomorrow

Quiz answers

1) Ceres

2) Chernobyl

3) Baklava

4) ‘Great Expectations’

5) Rising food prices

Dawn Chorus: How to weigh a Galapagos tortoise, Wes Streeting refuses to be fired out of a cannon and the international crisp festival

A new website allowing the public to submit ideas on how to improve the NHS has, of course, been flooded