Today, TheMorgans & TheGrandma want to enjoy a wonderful musical, the Phantom of theOpera, one of the most popular shows in London, which is widely considered one of the world's most beautiful and spectacular musicals. Since 1986, it has played to over 160 million people in 217 cities and 23 languages.
Before this, the family has studied some English grammar with InterrogativePronouns and Adverbs of Frequency.
The story of the Phantom of the Opera was originally published in a series of articles in La Galois and then in a book in 1911 entitled, Le Fantôme de l’Opérawritten by a French journalist, Gastón Leroux.
When the story was first published it was not popular and the book went out of print.
Leroux
whose speciality was investigative journalism based his story on
true-life incidents. In fact, many who have researched this subject
believe with just a few exceptions the story has several elements that
are true.
The opera house in the story was based on the real Opera Garnier in Paris. The Opera Garnier does have underground tunnels and it also has an underground lake. Leroux used this setting in several dramatic scenes in his story.
There was an incident where a chandelier did fall in the Opera Garnier setting the building on fire and killing a woman.
Leroux used a falling chandelier in his story as a distraction so his Phantom could kidnap Christine.
The romance between the Phantom and Christine in the story is just fantasy but it is believed that Leroux based both characters on real people.
The Phantom is based upon a man named Erik who was born in a small village in Normandy, near Rouen. He was born with a horribly disfigured face so his parents abandoned him when he was eight. A circus basically took him and for 7 years he was used as an attraction.
It was believed that someone was secretly living in the opera house and many felt it was the ghost of the real Erik. In fact, many claimed that near Box 5 they heard ghostly voices and whispers when the area was unoccupied.
There
were other witnesses that stated that they saw this phantom running
through various parts of the opera house. Even more eerie these
witnesses stated this figure wore a black cape and a mask over its face.
Renata de Waele in 1993 wrote a narrative that compared the fictional to the real stories. She worked in public relations at the Opera Garnier for many years.
Some
of her speculations have been proven others have not. So reality is
blurred with fiction which leaves the curious with an intriguing
mystery.
Today, The Winsors and The Grandma have visited the Palace of Westminster,seat of the UK Parliament and one of the places where you can see pairs of peregrinefalcons in London.
Chloe Winsor, the Norwegian falconer, has demonstrated her skills with her falcon Oluv inside this incredible building, and the family has listened some stories about Franciscans and falcons in Sant Boi de Llobregat and Mallorca.
Before this, The Winsors have studiedsome English grammar with the Interrogative Pronouns and the syntactic order of the questions.
The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative chambers which occupy the building. The palace is one of the centres of political life in the United Kingdom; Westminster has become a metonym for the UK Parliament and the British Government, and the Westminster system of government commemorates the name of the palace.
The Elizabeth Tower of the palace, nicknamedBig Ben, is a landmark of London and the United Kingdom in general. The palace has been a Grade I listed building since 1970 and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
The building was originally constructed in the eleventh century as a royal palace and was the primary residence of the kings of England until 1512, when a fire destroyed the royal apartments. The monarch moved to the adjacent Palace of Whitehall, but the remainder of the palace continued to serve as the home of the Parliament of England, which had met there since the 13th century. In 1834 a second, larger fire destroyed the majority of the palace, but the twelfth century Westminster Hall was saved and incorporated into the replacement building.
The competition to design the new palace was won by the architect Charles Barry, who chose a Gothic Revival style for the building. Construction started in 1840 and lasted for 30 years, suffering delays, cost overruns, and the deaths of Barry and his assistant, Augustus Pugin. The palace contains chambers for the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the monarch, and has a floor area of 112,476 m2. Extensive repairs had to be made after the Second World War, including rebuilding the destroyed Commons chamber. Despite further conservation work having been carried out since, the palace is in urgent need of major repairs.
The site of the current palace and Houses of Parliament may have been used by Cnut during his reign from 1016 to 1035, and from c. 1045-c. 1050 Edward the Confessor built a palace and the first Westminster Abbey. The oldest surviving part of the palace is Westminster Hall, which dates from the reign of William II (r. 1087-1100).
The palace was the principal residence of the English monarchs in the late Medieval period.
In 1512, during the early reign of Henry VIII, a fire destroyed the royal apartments of the palace.
In 1534 Henry moved to the neighbouring Palace of Whitehall, formerly York Place, which he had seized from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Although Westminster remained a royal palace, from this point on its primary occupants were the two houses of Parliament and various courts of law.
The predecessor of Parliament, the Curia Regis, met in Westminster Hall when the king was in residence. The Model Parliament, considered the first Parliament of England, met at the palace in 1295; while medieval parliaments of England met in a variety of locations, the palace was frequently used and developed into the body's permanent home. The palace did not have purpose-built chambers for the House of Commons or the House of Lords instead using the available large gathering spaces built for the palace. In time, the Commons adapted St Stephen's Chapel for its use in the sixteenth century, and the Lords used the Painted Chamber and, from 1801, the White Chamber.
The palace underwent significant alterations from the 18th century onwards, as Parliament struggled to carry out its business in the limited available space. These included a new storage and committee rooms by John Vardy, completed in 1770; a new official residence for the Speaker of the House of Commons, completed in 1795; and significant alterations and a new building by James Wyatt, completed in 1801. The last alterations were undertaken by Sir John Soane between 1824 and 1827, and included new library facilities for both Houses of Parliament and new law courts for the Chancery and King's Bench.
The exterior of the Palace of Westminster -especially the Elizabeth Tower which houses the bell known as Big Ben, and its setting on the bank of the River Thames- is recognised worldwide, and is one of the most visited tourist attractions in London. Tsar Nicholas I called it a dream in stone.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) classifies the Palace of Westminster, along with neighbouring Westminster Abbey and St Margaret's, as a World Heritage Site. It is also a Grade I listed building.
Britain is a parliamentary democracy. Power rests in Parliament, in the House of Commons, and the government -the executive- has to seek the consent of MPs for its legislation.
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