Too many good things

A busy schedule mixing events, exhibitions, socialising, and daily domestic duties has left little time for reflecting on the things I've seen and done in the past week. They are in danger of slipping away altogether, so to try to stop that happening, here is a list with a few pictures. Research, analysis, re-living will have to happen later...

The view from higher up was different again (via)

Opera - Marriage of Figaro at the ENO - I loved the stage set as a thing in itself, but am still not sure how the cattle skulls relate to the story. And the chairs were good for the action, but perhaps a teeny bit gimicky. My horde of old opera programmees turned up those for performances in 1997 and 2001, so it was high time to see it again. The music is still floating around in my head.

Exhibitions - second viewing of Anselm Kiefer at the RA - and I plan to go yet again.

Child no 98. Chris Titmus/Hamilton Kerr Institute/Fitzwilliam Museum Photograph: Chris Titmus/Hamilton Kerr Institute, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge(via)

Silent Partners at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge - excellent, so informative about a little-known subject, artists' use of mannequins.

Several east-end galleries, a pretext for drawing there than to see the exhibitions themselves.

Islington Art Society autumn show (opened by the director of the National Portrait Gallery, no less).

An "imaginary portrait" by Moyna Flannigan

A talk - "Portrait in Printmaking: Why contemporary artists make portraits in print" (Moyna Flannigan, Tom Hammick, Alessandro Raho) - at the Soane Museum. With a view of the exhibition, Face to Face: British Portrait Prints from the Clifford Chance art collection (open till 24 January)

Reading and Q&A - Jane Smiley at London Review Bookshop, promoting her latest "Some Luck" - it's been hailed as the Great American Novel ... "but not in America", she pointed out. I so admire the variety in her work - and the compelling story telling.