Thursday 15 March
Eugene Onegin

Booking opens at the January meeting.

For the visit to Richmond Theatre to see Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky performed by Riverside Opera, we shall not provide transport because it makes the ticket price disproportionately high; I’m sorry that this may exclude some of you. However, when we take names for tickets in January, we shall have a list of those offering space in their car. By the same token, this visit is open to members and their friends, all at the group rate. This year, the opera will be a traditional production.

Eugene Onegin, Riverside Opera
Richmond Theatre, London

Thursday 26 April
The Foundling Museum and The Banqueting Hall

Booking opens at March meeting.

Some of you know that Pamela Scott has been a volunteer guide at the Foundling Museum since it opened in Brunswick Square over two years ago. When we visit, she will lead the tour. The Foundling Hospital first took in abandoned babies in the 1740s and we learn that story. The Museum also has a splendid collection of paintings donated to the Hospital by friends of Hogarth, who saw the deliberately built ‘exhibition space’ in the Foundling Hospital as a good place to display their work. The afternoon visit will be to the Banqueting House in Whitehall built by Inigo Jones with magnificent ceiling paintings by Rubens. It is all that is left of the great Palace of Whitehall which was destroyed by fire in 1698. It is also the site of the only royal execution in England’s history. We shall travel by coach.

The London Foundling Hospital, c. 1750
 

Wednesday 4 July
Eltham Palace

Booking opens at the May meeting.

'Eltham Palace is the epitome of 1930s chic. We shall visit this Art Deco home owned by the Courtauld family and built in the latest fashion reminding contemporaries of ocean liners. The entrance hall and the dining room take your breath away. Even Virginia Courtauld's bathroom is decorated in onyx and gold leaf. Given good weather we hope to be able to enjoy the gardens. We shall of course travel by coach.

Eltham Palace, art deco bathroom