The Rehearsal Orchestra — Mahler 9

Amazing weekend playing Mahler’s 9th Symphony (4th bassoon and contra!) with The Rehearsal Orchestra under Lev Parikian.

 Orchestra leader was Eddie Reid, whom I well remember from the orchestra at English National Opera; serried ranks of magnificent players – amateurs and students – from all over the country, forming Mahler’s huge line-up. Shame there was no list of participants, as I didn’t know many of them apart from a couple of the other bassoons, and there were some really outstanding players.

Mahler 9 is an extraordinary work. written at the end of his life – subtitled by Leonard Bernstein ‘four ways of saying farewell’… Among Lev’s many illuminating and inspiring comments was the observation that the opening phrases represent ‘Mahler’s irregular heartbeat’ (which was soon to kill him) – and that the entire musical substance of the hour-and-a-half-long work is contained in the first six bars.

Saturday’s rehearsals were at Henry Wood Hall, a handsome deconsecrated 18th-century church much used by professional orchestras for rehearsals – well-lit, well-appointed and with a nice café in the crypt. For Sunday we moved to The Warehouse in Theed Street, in the hinterland behind Waterloo Station; a less comfortable venue but actually not too bad. Over the two days, Lev steered us through the complexities of the four movements, culminating in a ‘public’ run-through (I think there were a few brave souls upstairs listening) which was far more than a fair bash, and by the end was absolutely spellbinding.

Many thanks to Lev for his inspirational conducting (and cool head in adversity!); to Contac for suppressing my horrible cough for the duration; to Diana for pointing me in the direction of the Orchestra (and for playing too, and for stalwart ferrying of bassoon and contra as well as her double bass! – and for making the weekend such an enjoyable shared experience); to Caroline Stockmann for her tireless encouragement and fundraising (we each paid a fee to be there, but she told us that we are additionally being subsidised at between £75 and £115 per head: any generous musical millionaires out there?); and to Anne-Marie Norman for getting it all together – a fearsome administrative task executed with a light touch and a wry smile… What a great institution, and a great experience. Thank you!

The Hungry Monk

 

Happy to report that The Hungry Monk, at Jevington in Sussex, is STILL my favourite restaurant!

Diana and I ‘road-tested’ it yesterday for Sunday lunch, and it was absolutely wonderful – as wonderful as I remember it from 30 years ago…

Cosy lounge for with log fire for our welcoming glass, lovely starters, tender locally-reared Sussex lamb and seasonal vegetables, pretty ace desserts including of course Banoffi Pie which they invented (accidentally!) in 1972. Back to the lounge for coffee and chocs. Great selection of wines (they offer a package of a glass each of three different ones for three courses, all magnificent; but the wine list has more mouth-watering goodies in it too).

Can’t recommend it too highly – and we will be back here with the family for my ‘special’ birthday dinner in a few weeks’ time!

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009!

All good wishes to all of you out there, from me and Diana…

Here is the Christmas card — and I’ll put in an audio link so you can hear it too, in a wheezy computerized version (with apologies for the dysfunctional counterpoint in the middle):

click on the button below to play it!

Elisabeth Soderstrom (1927-2009)

Very sad to hear of the passing of Elisabeth Söderström, aged 82.

Swedish soprano, un-diva-ish diva, full of fun and laughter, great star of Glyndebourne when I was there in the 1970s. The definitive Countess in Richard Strauss’s Capriccio, sang all three leading female roles in Der Rosenkavalier (once all three on the same night!), pioneering exponent of Janacek (especially Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Case); a very moving Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelio; also sang Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Melisande in Debussy’s opera, and many more. Champion of songs and lieder in a surprising number of languages! Her last role on stage was the Countess in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades.

Thank you, Elisabeth, for brightening all our lives.

more here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/6629452/Elisabeth-Soderstrom.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/21/AR2009112102168.html

for Remembrance Day

Wilfred Owen:  Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

halloween bassoon

Happy Halloween!
This is from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra…

picture from Geoff Browne — thanks!

Garden Opera — sad news

A very sad announcement from one of my favourite opera companies:

THE GARDEN OPERA COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENT

The Trustees of Greensong Productions, the charity which owns and operates Garden Opera, regret to announce that they have decided that it is no longer financially viable for Garden Opera to continue its operations.  Two summers of wet weather in 2007 and 2008, combined with the recession, took a significant toll on our performance bookings for this year. Notwithstanding the reduction in salaries and fees to staff, singers and musicians, for which we thank them, and the generosity of friends and supporters, we are without reserves to sustain the loss suffered in 2008 and the substantial loss now forecast for 2009.  With no improvement in sight, we simply cannot afford to carry on and we will now effect an orderly and prompt run-down of our affairs.

The Trustees and Peter Bridges, who has run Garden Opera for the last 14 years, thank everyone who has been associated with the company: all our singers, musicians, directors, costume and set designers, back stage crews and many others; Lucy de Castro, who, as general manager, has so patiently sorted out all conceivable problems over the last seven years; our friends and supporters, particularly those who have helped us with donations; and, of course, our hosts who have been fantastic and without whom there would have been no Garden Opera.

Over the years, Garden Opera has brought a lot of fun and happiness (and good music) to a huge audience across the country and overseas, including a great Barber this summer which was really well-received. Furthermore, through our performances we have helped many of our hosts over the years to raise several hundred thousand pounds for their many different charities.
So, it is with considerable sadness that we bring down the curtain.

However, Peter has informed the Trustees that he would like to have the opportunity to re-establish Garden Opera in a new guise.  Should that prove to be possible, they wish him all good fortune.  

Ray Miles

Chairman

9 October 2009

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Commiserations to Peter and to Lucy and to all the members of the company past and present, and thanks for some of the greatest operatic experiences ever.  Let us hope the phoenix will find a way to rise again.

Any millionaires out there??

More info on their website: http://www.gardenopera.co.uk/

‘Tristan und Isolde’ at Covent Garden

Well!  The Royal Opera’s new production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde has really set the cat among the pigeons.  I couldn’t possibly comment myself, being closely involved with it (I wrote and edited the surtitles).

The critics’ reaction has been generally more than favourable (four or five stars) – the audience’s markedly less so (one seasoned witness said ‘I’ve never heard booing like it in the Opera House’)…

If you really want to see the fur flying, check out Charlotte Higgins’ blog on the Guardian website, and (especially) all the follow-up comments.  Most interesting.

Were you there?  What did you think?  Let me know — add a comment below.

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DISCLAIMER
Please note — all views expressed on this site are my own (or those of other contributors or persons quoted) and do not represent the views or policy of The Royal Opera or any other employer or organisation mentioned.

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 photo (uncredited) stolen from Charlotte Higgins’s blog

Garden Opera: The Barber of Seville

On Friday 11 September, to Garden Opera at Ravenscourt Park, London W6 – the very last performance of their summer-long season, and the only one we could get to!

The weather was kind – not too chilly, and it didn’t rain.  The setting was a lovely peaceful enclosed space, disturbed only by the occasional District Line train and the enthusiastic intervention of some local parakeets.  Handy tea-shop before the performance, loos rather a long dash in the interval…  The audience we presume were mostly local:  pretty much a full house, appreciative and animated.

The opera was Rossini’s BARBER OF SEVILLE, in a very simple, slick and extremely funny production by Katharina Wienecke.  The action was set in ‘Dr Bartolo’s Circus’, seemingly an odd idea but it worked very well, with Rosina ‘The Singing Bird’ (in a cage, of course) as the star attraction, her disgruntled guardian Dr Bartolo a retired animal-tamer, and Basilio an unlikely magician, forever producing scarves, flowers and magic wands from a variety of orifices.  Count Almaviva and Figaro the barber survived relatively unscathed from Rossini’s (or his librettist’s) original conception.  Occasional inconsistencies (Dr Bartolo was required to be a physician after all, to match the text of his patter-aria) either didn’t impinge or were turned into sources of comedy.  And, as in the best Barber performances, there were moments of (almost) genuine pathos.

The show took forever to get going, partly because of interminable if well-intentioned announcements from a distinguished local worthy (over incessant pre-recorded fairground organ music);  then the Overture started as another fairground organ piece, gradually morphing into the ‘live’ orchestra of Peter Bridges and his small but perfectly formed circus band (flute doubling clarinet, trumpet doubling flugelhorn – David Clewlow, no less – plus two violins, cello and the maestro himself on piano).  At long last the opera itself began;  the first scene (even without the chorus) does seem interminable, but that is Rossini’s fault. 

Once the show got up steam

Gergiev’s ‘Ring’ at Covent Garden

So… the circus came to town last week, and now it has departed in a cloud of dust and a hail of booing (some of it mine – never done that before!) amid the storms of applause.

Valery Gergiev, the Ossetian wizard, attempted the impossible – all four operas of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in four days, with his Mariinsky company from St Petersburg (formerly the Kirov) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

I can’t really comment on all four, since for two of them I was behind the glass, working.  But my friend Diana did come to all four and took me to the other two (thank you, D!) so I got the general idea.

Did Gergiev succeed?  No.  Over-hyped, over-conducted, mostly beautifully played;  under-cast and under-sung, with very few honourable exceptions (it does not bode well for a Götterdämmerung when the loudest applause is for the Alberich);  over-designed, over-lit, under-rehearsed;  and, above all, under-directed.

This is surely Gergiev’s fault:  my feeling is that he doesn’t think anything is important except what he thinks is important, namely his conducting and the fact that he has ‘achieved’ this impossible feat at all.  He is quoted in interviews as saying that he wants to get away from the tyranny of the opera director:  having evolved his overall concept with designer George Tsypin (master of the enormous stage-cluttering useless object:  remember the giant cracked glass bottles in his Theodora from Glyndebourne?), Gergiev proceeded to sack or alienate at least four directors along the way (including Johannes Schaaf – ‘too German’ – and Opera Factory’s brilliant David Freeman). 

Finally he has brought in a fifth director, Alexander Zeldin, who has a Russian name but is British and as far as I can tell speaks not much Russian;  worst of all, he is only 24.  With the best will in the world, nobody aged 24 can have more then the haziest notion of how to direct this Everest of the operatic repertoire, which countless directors, conductors, scholars and analysts have spent whole lifetimes trying to understand.

I fear he is not really a director, but a ‘crisis manager’ and director of traffic, brought in to salvage what is left of previous attempts to make the original concept work.  By the time we got to the end of Götterdämmerung, it was impossible to discern any attempt at understanding the piece or the drama, or even listening to the music, for heaven’s sake.  Of all composers, Wagner tells you in every bar precisely what is going on, dramatically and emotionally;  just open your ears and listen (and read his stage directions!).  And please, try sitting out front and reading the surtitles, and then you will understand why the audience sniggered at things that were clearly in the text but were not happening on stage.  Ho hum.

Gergiev’s original concept was a fascinating one:  finding parallels between the Nordic myths that Wagner drew on and his own native Ossetian Nart sagas, he gets Tsypin to fill the stage with 30-foot effigies of Nart gods, and tries to get away from conventional Teutonic readings of the cycle by finding links with other mythologies.  Well yes, fine.  But (as my boss, Judi Palmer, said) it might have been a nice concept if anyone had done anything with it.  There were interesting ideas, such as making the ‘gold’ and the ‘Rhine’ out of shimmering masses of actors’ bodies;  but these ideas were not thought through or related to Wagner’s text, so failed to take off. 

Moreover,