A Brief Thought on Musicales

I adored everything about Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series, but one of my favorite running jokes was the annual Smythe-Smith musicale. Happily, Ms. Quinn is revisiting the Smythe-Smiths (the first book in a planned quartet comes out May 31, according to her website), but they were very much at the forefront of my mind last night, for reasons I will explain in a moment. The joke with the Smythe-Smiths is that they are forced to put on a musicale every year; their mother seems to think that showcasing their talents will endear them to male suitors, but as they are sadly lacking in musical ability, the evenings prove tiresome rather than enchanting. Whenever I read Regencies, I find myself longing for some sort of abstract version of days of yore - but I think I would rather die than trade my iTunes library for endless evenings of excruciating amateur music.

You see, last night I found myself at something akin to a musicale. One of my friends is a singer (quite a good one, actually), and she invited an army of her friends to see her perform in a recital comprised of fellow students of her vocal teacher. Sadly, the army failed to materialize; like musicales, these activities do tend to scare people away. And while I was very glad that I got to hear my friend sing (again, she is amazing, and hearing her sing Ke$ha around the house is no match for the power of her voice performing an aria), the opening bits with the true amateurs left me feeling as cranky as any Smythe-Smith musicale would.

So while I would happily attend rout-parties, Venetian breakfasts, and the like, I think I would have to draw the line at making musicales a regular part of my social whirl. Are there any Regency entertainments that make you have second thoughts?