This week’s Opera on 3 on BBC Radio 3 was recorded at Glyndebourne Festival Opera this summer with the London Philharmonc Orchestra.  

Jiri Belohlavek conducts a production of Rusalka, Dvorak’s best-known opera. It’s the first time in its history that the famous festival has staged this tale, loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, but translated into a Czech idiom.

Rusalka, a water nymph, lives in a pool in a dark and brooding forest. She’s doomed not only to lose her lover but to live forever as a will-o-the-wisp tempting other men to their deaths. This critically-praised production is directed by Melly Still, making her operatic debut, with Anna Maria Martinez as Rusalka and American tenor Brandon Jovanovich as the prince she falls in love with.

6.00pm, Saturday 3 October
And available for one week via BBC iPlayer

Visit the Radio 3 website for interviews and production videos from Glyndebourne.

I must say what an utterly glorious time Lord H and I had at last night’s The Great Look Up event. The range of experts and telescopes was astonishing. We managed to get brilliant views of Jupiter, its rings and three of its moons, plus a ring nebula and a veryvery close look at the moon. I loved the whole thing. It was fascinating, and I would definitely jump at the chance to do something like that again. It really made you look. In a world were that doesn’t happen often, I think.

Anyway, here’s today’s meditation poem:

Meditation 210

Redemption
lies in the struggle

to clear its path;
gaze upwards

and let your heart
rise

through a clarity
of angels.

This morning, I’ve been continuing the edit of Hallsfoot’s Battle and have now worked out the complicated piece of editing. Which, like many things in life, wasn’t actually as complicated or as fearsome once I got down to it. I’m very happy with how that section looks now. And, amazingly, I’m nearly half way through. Ye gods and little fishes indeed.

This afternoon, Lord H and I are off to our last Glyndebourne opera which is L’elisir d’Amore. One I really enjoy – it’s such fun. This time we’ve opted for the pre-performance tea, just to ring those proverbial changes, so we’ll spend the long interval sipping champagne and admiring the gardens. As you do. Ah, it’s a tough life … Though sadly it’s the last of this season’s operas so no more Glyndebourne after today until next year. The end of summer then, I fear.

Meanwhile, I’m in two minds about Ishiguro’s latest short story collection, Nocturnes, which I’ve read on my e-reader. It’s a very interesting and not a difficult read, with the stories focused on music and displacement. But it felt a bit “light” and I didn’t really enjoy the title story, which went on for far far too long. The collection as a whole didn’t really leave me with any sense of voice, and I have to say it’s not Murakami. Though not bad. Faint praise, I know, but ah well.

Today’s nice things:

1. Remembering the night sky
2. Poetry
3. Editing
4. Glyndebourne.

Anne Brooke – dusting down her posh frock and shoes
A Dangerous Man – which strange to say did once have a Glyndebourne sex scene but wisely I ditched it …

Dvořak is not my favourite composer, and I’d not seen any of his ten operas before. Nine of them are little known, and this one is mainly famous for the song to the moon, sung by Rusalka herself in Act I, so I wasn’t expecting much. But this was a revelation, and I congratulate Glyndebourne for putting it on.

Jiři Bělohlavek conducted the London Philharmonic, giving the music a wonderful emotional intensity at just the right moments, and the production by Melly Still, with designs by Rae Smith and lighting by Paule Constable, gave exactly the right feel to this drama pitting the powers of nature, particularly water, against human feelings and emotions. Like Ashton’s ballet Ondine it is loosely based on Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s fairy tale Undine, and tells of a water nymph named Rusalka who falls in love with a prince. To win him she acquires human form while losing her ability to speak, and he is overwhelmed with love for her. At their wedding, however, she becomes cold, spurns his advances, and is unable to compete with the fatal attraction of the foreign princess. Rusalka abandons her prince, and though he searches for her and they are briefly reunited, his fate is sealed by his own unfaithfulness, and he dies in her arms.

Rusalka was beautifully sung and performed by Ana Maria Martinez, and the prince was the strikingly handsome Brandon Jovanovich, who sang like a god. Rusalka’s father, the water spirit Vodnik, was very well sung by Mischa Schelomianski, and the witch Ježibaba was strongly sung by Larissa Diadkova, whom I saw recently as an outstanding Fricka in the Mariinsky’s Ring cycle in London. The foreign princess was well portrayed as an attractive and manipulative young woman by Tatiana Pavlovskaya, and the whole cast did an excellent job, including the black-clothed shadowy figures representing forces of nature. Altogether a glorious evening that stimulates a desire to see more of Dvořak’s operas.

Meaning and origin of the name Rusalka: the word rusalka is Slavic — in Russian it means mermaid, and in Czech water nymph — but its etymology is far older, the term rus having an ancient Indo-European origin meaning dew or humidity (rasa in Sanskrit and Lithuanian).

This was Glyndebourne’s 2003 production by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, revived in 2007, 2008, and again this year under revival director Daniel Dooner. It works terrifically well, with a set by Roland Aeschlimann featuring a broken vortex of huge curved girders. While the vortex alters only slightly from act to act, the main variation comes from the wonderful lighting by Robin Carter. There was no comparison with the cold and incoherent production I saw in Bayreuth three weeks ago, and musically it was better too, with Glyndebourne’s music director Vladimir Jurowski conducting the London Philharmonic with restraint and sensitivity. Unlike Bayreuth, this Glyndebourne production gives a focus to the opera by having essentially the same set throughout, so things can gradually build in intensity until the Liebestod, after which the audience remained silent for a few moments while a square opening surrounding Isolde slowly closed itself off.

The singers all did a fine job, with Ian Storey standing in at the last minute for Torsten Kerl as Tristan. Anja Kampe, whom I saw in February giving a fine performance of Senta in the Royal Opera’s production of Holländer, sang Isolde, but I felt she didn’t quite rise above the orchestra at the end. Her companion Brangäne was sympathetically portrayed by Sarah Connelly, and Tristan’s companion Kurwenal was sung by Polish baritone Andrzej Dobber, who came over very strongly in the last Act. Melot was Trevor Scheunemann, and German bass Georg Zeppenfeld sang a powerful and nuanced King Mark. His understanding and forgiveness of Tristan in the last act was beautifully done, and Ian Storey responded well as Tristan. This was fine acting with both body and voice, and Zeppenfeld gave a fitting lead-in to the final love-death of Isolde.

Three down and one to go. In 2008 the Metropolitan Opera’s cinema screening was excellent, this year Bayreuth was a great disappointment, but now Glyndebourne has made up for it. Let’s hope the new Royal Opera production compares to the two good ones, not the bad one. Oddly enough all four directors are German: Daniel Dorn for the Met, Christof Marthaler for Bayreuth, Nikolaus Lehnhoff for Glyndebourne, and Christof Loy for the Royal Opera. I am full of anticipation, but not optimistic, since Loy’s last two operas for Covent Garden have been disappointing. He inserted a middle-aged lesbian composer into Ariadne auf Naxos, making a nonsense of the interaction with Zerbinetta, which is a focal point of the opera, and he turned Lulu into an incredibly cold affair with stationary singers who might as well have been giving a concert performance. Will Tristan also be cold, like Marthaler’s awful Bayreuth production? I shall report again after the first night on September 29^th.

Rushing off to the station to go to Paris.  In summary, Torsten Kerl afflicted by an allergic reaction to something.  Ian Storey as stand-in.  Very good, though inevitably a bit uncertain clambering around the curves.  Lost the battle with the third act orchestra.  Georg Zeppenfeld as King Marke fabulous.  Anja Kampe an outstanding Isolde, warmer than many a voice to sing that role and held out for a fabulous Liebestod.  Conducting started all fiery drama, caught the mood of act 2, but sort of lost tension in the third act (or maybe Storey did?) and the Leibestod didn’t quite have the thrust and pulse that I like to have in my, umm, orchestral orgasms.  Fabulous night though…   more later.

Geoff Brown in The Times:

..this is the first Tristan of the conductor Vladimir Jurowski, apart from a concert sampling of Act II last year. He views it as a love story, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra oblige with a range of dark burnished colours that would make any interior decorator proud.

Barry Millington in the Evening Standard:

Now on the podium is Vladimir Jurowski, the music director of Glyndebourne and principal conductor of the LPO, resident in the pit once again this season and playing quite superbly on this occasion.

What Jurowski brings to the score that was lacking in Jiri Belohlavek’s otherwise impressive reading is a vibrant, nerve-tingling response to the welter of emotions that characterises the work. Every phrase is alive with the surge of sexual energy, the ebb and flow of passion but Jurowski builds these inflections with unerring skill into the larger paragraphs that make up Wagner’s acts.

Plus a review in The Argus

More reviews of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde at Glyndebourne Festival Opera have been published.

Richard Fairman in the Financial Times:

Above all, Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra have unlocked the door to the world of seething emotions within Wagner’s music. The attention to detail and scrupulous balance that Jurowski and his orchestra invariably achieve these days were expected but, by the final act, he had gone further, igniting a blistering intensity that threatened to send Glyndebourne’s elegant wooden interior up in flames. With music-making such as this coming out of the pit, nothing is beyond Glyndebourne at the moment.

Plus:

Andrew Clements in The Guardian 

Fiona Maddocks in The Observer

Last night was the opening of Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde at Glyndebourne, a revival of their 2003 production by Nikolaus Lehnhoff.   It’s the first time that the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Principal Conductor, Vladimir Jurowski, has conducted the complete opera, although he had programmed Act 2 in a concert in December 2008.

The first of the broadsheet reviews is from the Telegraph.   In his 4 star review Rupert Christiansen said:

‘The final newcomer to the opera was Vladimir Jurowski, conducting a London Philharmonic Orchestra on absolutely stupendous form.  For the first two acts, tempi were immaculately measured and his care for detail precise. Then came Act 3, and Jurowski thrillingly surrendered to some of the most intoxicatingly powerful music ever penned by man.’

There’s also a review in The Stage

Music critic Edward Seckerson also reviewed this performance on his blog.

A week or two ago we asked you for your reviews of our Fairy Queen prom. I’ll be honest – we weren’t exactly indundated! But we did recieve the one below – thank you! If anyone else has comments or reviews you can comment here or email us.

I thought the OAE were impeccable, and the Carolyn Sampson plaint as perfect a collaboration as one gets.  This, and some of the other songs saved the evening.

But the production had a spineless and somewhat aimless feel – it seemed over-liberal as a guise for not really having its visionary feet on the ground.  Neither was it out and out “Music Hall”: it was too prissy for that.

I think it sadly betrayed a Mark Morris’s influence (consciously or unconsciously I don’t know) (as in King Arthur) which it failed to pull off by being merely a poor and rather messy imitation of his great style.

The bunny costume scene was really appalling. The applause it raised just sycophancy or bemusement at best.*

But we were overall very glad we went,  Thank you!

Ben Gaskell

*Editors note : Not from me – I was in tears – of laughter!

I have to say that last night’s Rusalka was absolutely superb. I loved every minute of it. Wonderful singing, wonderful scenery and utterly astonishing costumes. A tour-de-force indeed. You can always tell how successful the Glyndebourne operas are by how lively the queue for the ladies’ loos is in the interval. Dahhlings, they were buzzing. So much so that some of us forgot we were there to go to the loo at all and just kept talking excitedly about it all even when cubicles were free. Marvellous!

Anyway, despite being a tad over-tired today, here’s this morning’s poem for you:

Meditation 189

Worn-out sacks, patched-up
wineskins, ragged clothes,
old sandals, mouldy bread
and more than a dash
of good old-fashioned deceit

save the Gibeonites
from destruction,
making an eternity
of cutting wood
and carrying water

for the conquering
but foolish Israelites
a small price to pay
for life.

Other good writing news is that my short story, An Unholy Affair, is now up at Cynic Magazine and is of course ideal Sunday reading, ho ho. I’m also pleased to say that my rather more than off-the-wall poem, Blutherbung, is published by Every Day Poets. Enjoy!

Today, we pew-dwellers have nobly rebelled against ridiculous church Heath & Safety orders and we all shook hands at the Peace anyway, aha! We in the Shires are obviously not going to be mollycoddled by anything that comes out of Canterbury, my dears. The vicar said we were all a bunch of wild rebels, but in admiring tones, I have to admit. The revolution starts here …

Lord H and I have spent most of the afternoon having a glorious lunch with our middle neighbour, who is a wow at Indonesian food, and insists we drink buckets of wine. Ah, it’s a tough life, eh. And I’ve got to grips with the engine and tyres of my new car, and now know roughly where the oil and water containers might be, and what my tyre pressures are. Always good to have some kind of control over one’s transport.

Meanwhile, Dreamspinner Press are having a month-long Summer Fun Sale for August, so if there’s something you wanted to buy, now is most definitely the time! And today’s Rainbow Extravaganzafocuses on Lara Zielinsky who is a fellow PD Publishing author, so feel free to pop in and see what she has to say about her award-winning work. Great stuff.

Oh and I’ve had a short story rejection (sigh …) and have therefore sent it out again into the great unknown. We battle on, eh.

This week’s haiku is slightly Shakespearian and more than bizarre:

Days of quietness,
but in my dreams I’m pursued
by trains and wild bears.

Really, I do have a strange dream-life at times, I can tell you.

Today’s nice things:

1. Opera memories
2. Poetry
3. Short story publication
4. Poetry publication
5. Church rebellion
6. Boozy lunches with the neighbour
7. Dreamspinner sale
8. Haikus.

Anne Brooke – living a purely unholy Sunday – again …
Vulpes Libris: have a roaring time with a fabulous chic lit ghost

A rainy day ahead, but I’m chilled. Well almost. This morning’s poem is below:

Meditation 188

Sometimes the deepest act
you can do
in a moment of connection

is listen.
The silence is more powerful
than any word

resting on your tongue.
Remember how the air felt
when the act is done.

Had a lovely lie-in too, which has been bliss. And I’ve also caught up with Mock the Week on the iplayer, so am being totally lazy, hurrah. Though I’m pleased to say that the Rainbow Reviews August GLBT Extravaganza begins today, and will be a month of GLBT author interviews and giveaways, so it’s well worth keeping a close eye on. Sadly, I’m not included but I’m being brave (sob!) – well, as brave as I ever can be with an ego like mine, eh, ho ho … Anyway, today’s focus is on J M Snyder who has some very important advice for writers, I must say. Thank you for this, J M!

This afternoon, Lord H and I are at Glyndebourne to see Rusalka. Looks like a jolly number for sure. So I’m already staring at my frocks and wondering which one to opt for. As long as we can dodge the raindrops they promise us, I’m sure we’ll be fine.

Today’s nice things:

1. Poetry
2. Lazy mornings
3. TV
4. Rainbow Reviews extravaganza
5. Glyndebourne.

Anne Brooke – limbering up the voice once more …
Vulpes Libris: Adventure Week gets up close & personal with Napoleon

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind of late.  To summarise:

• Orpheus in the Underworld at Holland Park;
• Il Barbiere di Siviglia 13th July (Keenlyside long-since cancelled; JDF withdrew; DiDonato in a wheelchair);
• Il Barbiere di Siviglia live relay to Canary Wharf 15th July (JDF present; DiDonato still in wheelchair obviously; absolute downpour for duration of the overture…)
• Il Barbiere di Siviglia 18th July matinee (Colin Lee unwell, acted role, Toby Spence sang from wings; DiDonato still rolling around);
• Tosca 18th July evening (Voigt withdrew, replaced by Nelly Miriciou to questionable effect).

This account of our opera-going doesn’t of course take account of the fact that Marcello Giordani had a night off from Tosca on 16th, and Georghiu, having had a crack at ‘heroine riding to the rescue’ found it all rather trying and had a night off to be replaced by Amanda Echalaz (great envy at missing that performance!).  It’s all been rather trying of late for the Covent Garden casting managers, I don’t doubt.

But starting with Orpheus in the Underworld… where to begin?  I think that, if you play Offenbach like G&S you’ll get something that owes more to G&S than Offenbach.  It was all posh D’Oyly Carte voices or over-acted mockney accents.  The only characterisations which really stood out for me were Juno (Jill Pert) and Public Opinion (Nuala Willis) who were marvellous, even though they had relatively little to sing and weren’t tremendously audible when they did.  The sparring leads I couldn’t quite get on with, Orpheus especially (Benjamin Segal), who was the main culprit for over-posh public-school-parody G&S style mannerisms.  Jenni Bern’s Eurydice had a pleasantly incisive voice that cut through the difficult acoustic and was not unattractive at all, delivering the more ’sparkling’ moments effectively.  I couldn’t quite adjust, however, to the changes in accent between speaking (cockney) and singing (music college diction-and-vowels).  The stand-out singer-actor was Pluto/Aristaeus who was wonderfully sinuous as Pluto and Ben Fogle-ish posh-but-dim as Aristaeus, with strong voice to match.  There were some effective dance-sequences, and a realtively traditionally-staged can-can, all underskirts and whooping.

The production was reasonable, with a fairly interesting concept based around a Hollywood studio with a curious addition of a German director barking orders in ‘Allo ‘Allo style which failed really to catch light and overcome the discomfort that such displays are wont to induce.  The Paramount inspired tall set was effective, where a gold-suit clad Bacchus (which, alas, wasn’t quite as titillating as one might have hoped) emerged as the gong-striking centrepiece.  However, the question has to be asked: in a piece with as much going on as Orphée aux Enfers, do you really need a really strong overlaid narrative?  Frankly, I tend to think it rather speaks for itself in something simpler and has the potential to get just as much of a laugh – more so – and hang together more effectively.  Just see the Laurent Pelly DVD for that.

Orpheus was the first near-opera I ever saw:  in the Opera North production at the (then newly-restored) Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield.  It bowled me over and probably started me on my operatic career.  I’m not sure that this one would have had the same effect…

So then to the Barbieres…  Oh, such utter delights married to such frustrations.  You will recall my irritation at the withdrawal of Florez because of the proximity of the 13th to the live relay on the 15th.  Colin Lee, as a number of Florez-ticketholding commenters have mentioned on various blogs, was indeed good, and particularly in the more lyrical moments, but the difference was noticeable in the rapid-fire passages where there was a very significant difference in the success with which they were negotiated.  He also appeared, dare I say, a little lumpen alongside a very sharp and detailed performance by many of the other cast members.  On the 18th, when he couldn’t sing, Toby Spence provided some of what was missing in the florid passages, and a generally ’sharper’ delivery, but with him off to the side (out of sight for us in the left Upper Slips, and occasionally out of hearing as well), it added an alienation which was wearisome.  They omitted the last long passage for Almaviva, and I can’t say I missed it.

But the other performers were wonderful, utterly wonderful.  DiDonato is stunning, a rich voice, flexible and expressive, secure and beautiful, allied to detailed acting and tremendous intensity.  Worth each visit just for that.  And the wheelchair detracted next to nothing – a real tribute to her artistry, and those of colleagues on the whole.  Corbelli as Dr Bartolo was equally detailed, characterful and genuinely funny.  Furlanetto was luzury casting as Don Basilio, surely: he was fabulously creepy and comedic.  Spagnoli was a vibrant Figaro, with a voice that was a joy to listen to throughout, and fully into the role.  Finally, I enjoyed Jennifer Rhys-Davies’ Berta every bit as much as Elizabeth Gale’s in the previous run (to the extent that I misattributed the performance to Gale in an earlier draft of this blog, oops, sorry!): fabulously incisive and characterful.  In addition, her trashing of the room in the storm scene to Rosina’s instructions was so effective, and they communicated between each other so effectively and movingly, that this should be left in if the production is revived.  And it should be:  I don’t hold with the scepticism about the basic sets and the comic book presentation, I think it is joyous throughout.  And the Act 1 close with the whole set on hydraulics, swaying about, is just a wonderful theatrical device.  I did keep having pangs of worry about how close Joyce DiDonato was to this massive tumbling contraption, but no further injuries were sustained, I’m pleased to announce!

JDF was indeed wonderful, even sitting in the rain on a plastic groundsheet filling with water (me, not him), watching him on a giant BP Big Screen with the orchestral crescendos reverberating off the glass towers around us at Canary Wharf and dying away into the night.  It stopped chucking it down with rain at the end of the overture and we survived from then on.  Quite magical, in a compromised typically London sort of way.

And then Tosca.  Oh blimey.  Well, this has to be the coarsest Tosca I have yet come across.  The production is perfectly serviceable, for all that it still looks to me like the old one has just been given a good dusting and a reshuffle.  The directing of the revival had added in a couple of touches here and there which brought some additional life to things.  But there was an issue with the principals and the conducting which made even the ’shabby little shocker’ look like the proverbial nut cowering under the descending sledge-hammer.

Terfel was wonderful – amazing in power, sinister, constantly alert to all that was happening, totally in command of the stage.  He was vocally on his best form, from the lithe beauty of the sinister passages to the out-and-out power of, for example, the Te Deum.  Worth the ticket price alone.

Which is good, because Marcello Giordani and Nelly Miriciou were not easy listening.  In one way, though, I suppose Giordani was relatively easy-listening because he was simply so loud.  Everything seemed to be loud, and E Lucevan le Stelle lacked any dramatic tension as a result, or the necessary inwardness.  It got cheered to the rafters, but there you go.

And then there’s Miriciou.  I was so looking forward to hearing her in this role (or indeed, just hearing her, since I don’t think I ever have).  I was a few years too late, though, I fear.  She was undoubtedly committed and again engaged in many details of the production, but the vocal sound was quite simply unpleasant.  It was unwieldy in rapid dramatic passages with some very questionable pitching (to my ears, anyway) in the upper-mid-range.  Vissi d’Arte was delivered with some style, and some beautiful moments, but it was not moving because of what surrounded it.  It was very disappointing, and I found it difficult to keep attention on the third act.  I read the very real esteem in which she is held and trust that this was either an off-day or this Tosca was taken on as a chance to stay in touch with a role which has been so significant.  I wasn’t initially disappointed by Deborah Voigt’s withdrawal, feeling that her portrayal would have been rather glossy and unengaged, if beautiful, and I wasn’t unhappy not to be seeing Angela’s Tosca again.  However, I have learned to be careful what I wish for…

Add onto that Jacques Lacombe’s unrelentingly loud and unsubtle conducting and you have a rather dispiriting end to the season, and an evening that left me with very slight ringing in my ears on the train on the way home, and not very much by way of satisfaction.  I left Tosca humming tunes from the afternoon’s Barbiere…

So what lies ahead in the summer…?  The Mariinski Ring; Glyndebourne for Rusalka and Tristan und Isolde; Forbidden Broadway at the Chocolate Factory; avoidance of the Royal Albert Hall.  Maybe not a season end after all, then…

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind of late.  To summarise:

• Orpheus in the Underworld at Holland Park;
• Il Barbiere di Siviglia 13th July (Keenlyside long-since cancelled; JDF withdrew; DiDonato in a wheelchair);
• Il Barbiere di Siviglia live relay to Canary Wharf 15th July (JDF present; DiDonato still in wheelchair obviously; absolute downpour for duration of the overture…)
• Il Barbiere di Siviglia 18th July matinee (Colin Lee unwell, acted role, Toby Spence sang from wings; DiDonato still rolling around);
• Tosca 18th July evening (Voigt withdrew, replaced by Nelly Miriciou to questionable effect).

This account of our opera-going doesn’t of course take account of the fact that Marcello Giordani had a night off from Tosca on 16th, and Georghiu, having had a crack at ‘heroine riding to the rescue’ found it all rather trying and had a night off to be replaced by Amanda Echalaz (great envy at missing that performance!).  It’s all been rather trying of late for the Covent Garden casting managers, I don’t doubt.

But starting with Orpheus in the Underworld… where to begin?  I think that, if you play Offenbach like G&S you’ll get something that owes more to G&S than Offenbach.  It was all posh D’Oyly Carte voices or over-acted mockney accents.  The only characterisations which really stood out for me were Juno (Jill Pert) and Public Opinion (Nuala Willis) who were marvellous, even though they had relatively little to sing and weren’t tremendously audible when they did.  The sparring leads I couldn’t quite get on with, Orpheus especially (Benjamin Segal), who was the main culprit for over-posh public-school-parody G&S style mannerisms.  Jenni Bern’s Eurydice had a pleasantly incisive voice that cut through the difficult acoustic and was not unattractive at all, delivering the more ’sparkling’ moments effectively.  I couldn’t quite adjust, however, to the changes in accent between speaking (cockney) and singing (music college diction-and-vowels).  The stand-out singer-actor was Pluto/Aristaeus who was wonderfully sinuous as Pluto and Ben Fogle-ish posh-but-dim as Aristaeus, with strong voice to match.  There were some effective dance-sequences, and a realtively traditionally-staged can-can, all underskirts and whooping.

The production was reasonable, with a fairly interesting concept based around a Hollywood studio with a curious addition of a German director barking orders in ‘Allo ‘Allo style which failed really to catch light and overcome the discomfort that such displays are wont to induce.  The Paramount inspired tall set was effective, where a gold-suit clad Bacchus (which, alas, wasn’t quite as titillating as one might have hoped) emerged as the gong-striking centrepiece.  However, the question has to be asked: in a piece with as much going on as Orphée aux Enfers, do you really need a really strong overlaid narrative?  Frankly, I tend to think it rather speaks for itself in something simpler and has the potential to get just as much of a laugh – more so – and hang together more effectively.  Just see the Laurent Pelly DVD for that.

Orpheus was the first near-opera I ever saw:  in the Opera North production at the (then newly-restored) Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield.  It bowled me over and probably started me on my operatic career.  I’m not sure that this one would have had the same effect…

So then to the Barbieres…  Oh, such utter delights married to such frustrations.  You will recall my irritation at the withdrawal of Florez because of the proximity of the 13th to the live relay on the 15th.  Colin Lee, as a number of Florez-ticketholding commenters have mentioned on various blogs, was indeed good, and particularly in the more lyrical moments, but the difference was noticeable in the rapid-fire passages where there was a very significant difference in the success with which they were negotiated.  He also appeared, dare I say, a little lumpen alongside a very sharp and detailed performance by many of the other cast members.  On the 18th, when he couldn’t sing, Toby Spence provided some of what was missing in the florid passages, and a generally ’sharper’ delivery, but with him off to the side (out of sight for us in the left Upper Slips, and occasionally out of hearing as well), it added an alienation which was wearisome.  They omitted the last long passage for Almaviva, and I can’t say I missed it.

But the other performers were wonderful, utterly wonderful.  DiDonato is stunning, a rich voice, flexible and expressive, secure and beautiful, allied to detailed acting and tremendous intensity.  Worth each visit just for that.  And the wheelchair detracted next to nothing – a real tribute to her artistry, and those of colleagues on the whole.  Corbelli as Dr Bartolo was equally detailed, characterful and genuinely funny.  Furlanetto was luzury casting as Don Basilio, surely: he was fabulously creepy and comedic.  Spagnoli was a vibrant Figaro, with a voice that was a joy to listen to throughout, and fully into the role.  Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed (again) Elizabeth Gale’s Berta - and her trashing of the room in the storm scene to Rosina’s instructions was so effective, and they communicated between each other so effectively and movingly, that this should be left in if the production is revived.  And it should be:  I don’t hold with the scepticism about the basic sets and the comic book presentation, I think it is joyous throughout.  And the Act 1 close with the whole set on hydraulics, swaying about, is just a wonderful theatrical device.  I did keep having pangs of worry about how close Joyce DiDonato was to this massive tumbling contraption, but no further injuries were sustained, I’m pleased to announce!

JDF was indeed wonderful, even sitting in the rain on a plastic groundsheet filling with water (me, not him), watching him on a giant BP Big Screen with the orchestral crescendos reverberating off the glass towers around us at Canary Wharf and dying away into the night.  It stopped chucking it down with rain at the end of the overture and we survived from then on.  Quite magical, in a compromised typically London sort of way.

And then Tosca.  Oh blimey.  Well, this has to be the coarsest Tosca I have yet come across.  The production is perfectly serviceable, for all that it still looks to me like the old one has just been given a good dusting and a reshuffle.  The directing of the revival had added in a couple of touches here and there which brought some additional life to things.  But there was an issue with the principals and the conducting which made even the ’shabby little shocker’ look like the proverbial nut cowering under the descending sledge-hammer.

Terfel was wonderful – amazing in power, sinister, constantly alert to all that was happening, totally in command of the stage.  He was vocally on his best form, from the lithe beauty of the sinister passages to the out-and-out power of, for example, the Te Deum.  Worth the ticket price alone.

Which is good, because Marcello Giordani and Nelly Miriciou were not easy listening.  In one way, though, I suppose Giordani was relatively easy-listening because he was simply so loud.  Everything seemed to be loud, and E Lucevan le Stelle lacked any dramatic tension as a result, or the necessary inwardness.  It got cheered to the rafters, but there you go.

And then there’s Miriciou.  I was so looking forward to hearing her in this role (or indeed, just hearing her, since I don’t think I ever have).  I was a few years too late, though, I fear.  She was undoubtedly committed and again engaged in many details of the production, but the vocal sound was quite simply unpleasant.  It was unwieldy in rapid dramatic passages with some very questionable pitching (to my ears, anyway) in the upper-mid-range.  Vissi d’Arte was delivered with some style, and some beautiful moments, but it was not moving because of what surrounded it.  It was very disappointing, and I found it difficult to keep attention on the third act.  I read the very real esteem in which she is held and trust that this was either an off-day or this Tosca was taken on as a chance to stay in touch with a role which has been so significant.  I wasn’t initially disappointed by Deborah Voigt’s withdrawal, feeling that her portrayal would have been rather glossy and unengaged, if beautiful, and I wasn’t unhappy not to be seeing Angela’s Tosca again.  However, I have learned to be careful what I wish for…

Add onto that Jacques Lacombe’s unrelentingly loud and unsubtle conducting and you have a rather dispiriting end to the season, and an evening that left me with very slight ringing in my ears on the train on the way home, and not very much by way of satisfaction.  I left Tosca humming tunes from the afternoon’s Barbiere…

So what lies ahead in the summer…?  The Mariinski Ring; Glyndebourne for Rusalka and Tristan und Isolde; Forbidden Broadway at the Chocolate Factory; avoidance of the Royal Albert Hall.  Maybe not a season end after all, then…

Ah, Torchwood. What a very peculiar mix that week was. Such a rollercoaster ride and with such a deeply unsatisfying conclusion. Who would have thought that the kick-ass brilliant episode one could have led to the mixed-up confusion of episode five? Such a shame. Don’t get me wrong though. I thought that, taken as a whole, it was an utterly superb and gritty political fantasy drama, and the brilliantPeter Capaldi gave the performance of a lifetime as flawed civil servant, John Frobisher. I also think the scene where he (SPOILER ALERT – just in case!) goes up the stairs of his family home to kill his wife and children, interspersed with the equally wonderful scene of his secretary talking to Lois in prison about how Frobisher used to be might just be the best thing on TV since Rome.

But, to my mind, for all that it simply wasn’t Torchwood. It felt as if the scriptwriters had strayed so far from the ethos of the programme that they could easily have taken it out of the Torchwood world, given it a slight shift of structure and it would have worked equally well. And, if that’s the case, then I think that all in all it failed. Interestingly, (ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT!) when Ianto dies, I felt it had strayed so far from its centre by then that I didn’t much care either way whether he lived or not. I also do think that the scriptwriters never really understood how to handle a developing gay couple relationship – throughout the five nights, the dialogue between Jack and Ianto was never consistent and blew hot and cold all the time. It was really very unsatisfactory. And yes I do think Ianto had to die – due to Jack’s revealed past history and the fact that he’d taken twelve children to their deaths, creatively speaking Jack needed to suffer too, and that was fine. But, if the series wanted to hang on in some measure to what makes (or rather made) Torchwood special, then there would have been no need to kill Jack’s grandson, Steven, at the end. All they had to do to give it a really satisfying ending was to discover that Steven had inherited Jack’s resurrection abilities, and allow the boy to come back from the dead. That would have been grand – and opened up a whole new plotline about Jack’s developing links with his family, while Gwen develops hers. Instead, they seemed to blow any concept of light or positivity out of the water and left themselves with something of a mess. Again, such a shame.

Anyway, here’s today’s meditation:

Meditation 169

You won’t find it
in the sky
nor on the other side

of the ocean.

What you seek
is already with you;
it’s a pure scent,

richer than all the perfumes
of earth, poured out
like water, over skin.

Remember.

Other amusements of the day are that when cleaning the loo last night, the loo brush fell off in my hand and landed in the toilet-bowl. Goddammit. I had to get Lord H to come and fish it out and mend it – this sort of thing is a man’s job, you know … Oh, most definitely it is. However, bearing in mind that this week I’ve had a gear stick come off in my hand, and now a loo-brush, I am loathe to go anywhere near Lord H’s good self for the duration of the weekend, just in case. These things often travel in threes, you know. And I have absolutely no idea how I might explain it to the hospital, should I need to … Hmm, perhaps better safe than sorry.

This morning, I have finished writing up my review of Chris Cleave’s novel, The Other Hand (surely no coincidence, bearing in mind the above?…), for Vulpes Libris which will be up on site on 4 August. My review won’t be pretty either, that much I can say. The novel also has the worst blurb in the history of time – what on earth are publishers on these days??? The mind boggles indeed …

This afternoon however, things are looking up as Lord H and I are off to Glyndebourne once more to see Falstaff. I must admit to not usually being a fan of anything to do with Falstaff at all – I’ve always found him an immensely irritating and dull character, but hey it’s Verdi and it’s an experience. So I am endeavouring to keep an open mind. And the company, the food and the setting will be lovely for sure.

Oh, and the good news is that Lord H has found out how to open my strange PDF files on the CoolerReader. Apparently the Adobe Digital Editions downloads are not actual PDFs at all, but envelopes containing PDFs. When downloaded, they put the envelope in one file and the actual PDF in another. Yes, I know, it’s not intuitive at all, is it? And the instructions are sadly minimal. Anyway now I have found them on my computer, I have copied them to the eReader and it’s all working fine, hurrah. Hell, I can even bookmark the dang pages and find them again – what joy! Lord H and I are now the experts, sad to say …

Today’s nice things:

1. Poetry
2. Getting the loo brush mended
3. Not having even to think about Cleave’s dreadful novel for a while
4. Glyndebourne
5. Getting to grips with my CooleReader.

Anne Brooke – frightened to touch anything at all today

With performances of Verdi’s Falstaff underway, and the opening of Dvorak’s Rusalka on Saturday, the London Philharmonic Orchestra is firmly into its summer opera season at Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Tony Bryne is a member of the orchestra’s viola section, and is passionate about Glyndebourne and performing opera there.  You can hear him talking about this extraordinary opera house in the middle of the Sussex countryside in this special summer podcast.

Here’s the list of all of last season’s London Philharmonic Orchestra podcasts.   We’ll be taking a break over the summer, with the next podcast scheduled for late August.

If you’ve got access to  SkyARTS , you can watch and listen to performances from Glyndebourne on Saturday evenings during August.  More details.

An early and rather short blog today as we’re out for most of the day and won’t be back till late. Here’s this morning’s meditation, which is more religious than I’m used to, but hey it’s Sunday after all:

Meditation 158

A long questioning,
edged, as it must be,
with the threat

of rejection.
Then from a cloud
of curses

one clear truth:
once I was blind
and now I see.

Sometimes
the smallest arrow,
if you grasp it,

may pierce
the darkest night.

And I’m thrilled to say that I’ve had another review of Painting From Life by Kassa at Manic Readers who says the following:

“While on a vacation to rejuvenate a failing marriage, an artist encounters an unlikely muse in the form of an older man. An obsession quickly develops as the differing needs of the artist, his wife, and the object of his attention collide. This short story is haunting, intense, and unlikely. At just about 15 pages, the author has delivered a stunningly gripping story about an artist and his obsessions. From the hints of the past such as the history between the artist and his wife and the wife’s caustic comments, the author suggests that the unnamed artist may often find these unlikely muses and devote more time than is healthy to them. Similarly, the artist slowly and inevitably becomes the sole caretaker of an older man, Peter, while using the man as a model for his work that is only now gaining success. The author manages to use just a few words and descriptive phrases to convey intensity and emotion that is clearly felt. The impact of the artist’s need for Peter is surprising yet chilling in phrases such as, “There’s no need for him [Peter] to see or speak to anyone else but me.” The artist realizes that Peter fatigues easily while sitting for him, but the rush the artist feels is too addictive, too much to let go. He counters this by taking care of Peter yet knows he will paint the older man to his death. The implications and subtle meaning go far beyond the obvious and continue to resonate well after the short story is done. Crisp, vivid prose works incredibly well with vibrant characters all uninhibited by the short length. For those that enjoy a fabulous short story that truly makes you think and leaves you wondering well after it’s done, I highly suggest Painting from Life. The themes of art, death, obsession, love, selfishness, and need are all played out beautifully in this complex and complicated story.”

Gosh, thank you hugely, Kassa – much appreciated indeed! That’s put a big smile on my face today for sure.

Keeping to the literary theme, I’m also delighted to say that two of my tankas have just been published at Ink Sweat & Tears webzine, so I hope you enjoy the read. And thank you, Charles, for that!

All of which jollity will lead us nicely into a lovely summer afternoon spent at Glyndebourne where we’ve ordered a picnic, furniture and staff (staff, dahhlings, really!…) to set it up for us, so we can just sit back and enjoy the sunshine. Hey ho and lift a glass to the empire spirit indeed … And let’s not forget the song of course, which today is the glorious Giulio Cesare which we’ve seen before and loved, so I’m looking forward to the rerun. To my mind, you can’t ever go wrong with anything by Handel.

Here’s this week’s haiku. Or rather haikus – as I wrote one yesterday, got all smug that I’d done it and then another one (this time inspired by my continued and very enjoyable reading of Sara Maitland’s amazing “A Book of Silence”) suddenly popped by as well. Honestly, sometimes the pesky things are like buses.

First Haiku:

Outside: sun, laughter.
Inside: computer battles
and a web of words.

Second Haiku:

Silence unskins me.
It takes my heart’s full measure,
offers a strange grace.

Today’s nice things:

1. Poetry
2. The review of Painting from Life
3. Tankas publication
4. Glyndebourne
5. A double helping of haikus.

Anne Brooke – limbering up her voice once more …

Il glorioso Festival di Glyndebourne compie 75 anni e lo festeggia con un ricco cartellone

Il Festival 2009

Il titolo d’apertura (“Falstaff” di Verdi) è stato trasmesso il 21 giugno da Arté in una quasi diretta (era differita di circa un’ora). Si tratta di una nuova produzione affidata alla regìa di Richard Jones e alla direzione d’orchestra di Vladimir Jurowski. Forse in omaggio al 75° del Festival l’azione è stata spostata nell’Inghilterra degli anni 30 del Novecento (almeno così mi è sembrato dalla moda degli abiti). La cosa, omaggi a parte, non stupisce affatto, dal momento che non seguire le indicazioni del libretto e dell’autore è ormai il primo comandamento di ogni grande ente lirico e Glyndebourne non fa eccezione. A parte comunque questo aggiornamento temporale, di cui a mio giudizio l’opera non necessitava, il resto segue quanto previsto da Verdi e Boito. Il sipario si alza su un pub, Sir John in doppiopetto Principe di Galles dattiloscrive con tanto ticchettìo e il Jerez è sostituito da un blended … e via di questo passo. Alfin t’ho colto raggiante fior nel secondo quadro del II atto proviene da un gracchiante 78 giri su di un vecchio grammofono; vabbè, ormai si è abituati a ben altro e tutto sommato lo spettacolo ha dei momenti molto ben riusciti: ad es. tutto il terzo atto, in particolare il primo quadro  (Falstaff trascinato in scena bagnato fradicio, Ehi! Taverniere! cantata al primo piano, visibile dalla via, mentre si cambia gli abiti inzuppati davanti l’ostessa e tutto il seguito)

Un momento della prima parte del Terzo atto, quando Falstaff legge la lettera recapitatagli da Quickly (foto di Alastair Muir)

Bello e riuscito anche il secondo quadro dell’atto

Un momento del secondo quadro del III atto (foto Alastair Muir)

Tra le cose invece meno riuscite metterei il secondo quadro del I atto, con i cavoli e i cavolfiori in primo piano e i personaggi che sfilavano a turno tra essi

Un momento del secondo quadro del I atto (foto Alastair Muir)

Efficace invece il “capitombolo” di sir John in sahariana nel Tamigi

Il "capitombolo" nel Tamigi (foto Alastair Muir)

Venendo alla parte musicale, la direzione di Jurowski non segue le vitalistiche e iperritmiche versioni di grandi direttori del passato, optando per tempi piuttosto lenti in linea con alcune visioni più “senili” dell’opera. In tal modo viene dato un maggior risalto al declamato. Fortunatamente il cast, internazionale, non ha grossi problemi di dizione, fatta eccezione per il Bardolfo di Alasdair Elliot e il Cajus di Peter Hoare. Christopher Purves, baritono inglese proveniente per lo più dal repertorio settecentesco, è un Falstaff efficace e corretto. Il greco Tassis Christoyannis canta molto bene la parte di Ford. Bülent Bezdüz, tenore turco già affermato internazionalmente, ha la parte di Fenton in repertorio ed è forse il più convincente, dal punto di vista vocale, tra gli uomini. Nel cast femminile brilla particolarmente la Nannetta di Adriana Kucerová, sia per la deliziosa figura sia per la voce.

Adriana Kucerová (foto Jakub Klimo)

Efficacissima la Quickly della canadese Marie-Nicole Lemieux. Dina Kuznetsova e Jennifer Holloway sono rispettivamente Alice e Meg, convincenti sia scenicamente che vocalmente. L’unico italiano, Paolo Battaglia, canta la parte di Pistola. In conclusione un cast affiatato e di buon livello. Così mentre in Italia fanno saltare le Cenerentole per dare spazio agli azzurri che se le prendono di santa ragione, ci si può sempre consolare con le tv straniere che pare si ricordino che esistono altre realtà (forse più importanti?) oltre il gioco del calcio.

Am very pleased to say that All Romance Ebooks are now stocking both Pink Champagne and Apple Juice and Thorn in the Flesh, and Thorn in the Flesh even (at the moment of typing …) appears on the front page of All Romance Ebooks, so that’s been a bit of a thrill. And a special thank you to Leslie of Bristlecone Pine Press for sorting it all out. What a star!

Also today, my review of Erin Pringle’s short story collection, The Floating Order is now up at the Vulpes Libris review site. The collection – and I hope (!) the review – is well worth a read, all the more so as I’m disagreeing with literary review giant Scott Pack in my response to Pringle’s work …

And here’s this morning’s meditation:

Meditation 153

What turns curse
to blessing
is love;

let the light
wash through you
and pray

to one day know
where you came from
and where you go.

This afternoon, Lord H and I are at our first Glyndebourne event of the season and will be enjoying all the romance and song of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, plus there’s a bottle of champagne with my name on it, hurrah! I’m getting my glad rags dusted down even now.

All of which is highly appropriate as tomorrow will be my 45th birthday (hurrah!! So young, and so unspoiled, I hear you cry – or maybe not …) so the chances of any kind of journal entry are shamefully low and I’ll be spending most of my day admiring the roses and (I hope) sunshine of Wisley.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and I’ll catch up with you on Monday – which will of course be publication date for The Bones of Summer. Well, gosh!

Today’s nice things:

1. A new buying home for Champers and Thorn
2. The Vulpes Libris review
3. Poetry
4. Glyndebourne
5. Champagne!
6. My upcoming birthday
7. The roses of Wisley
8. Only two days to the Bones publication date, hurrah!

Anne Brooke – enjoying days of wine and roses …

Fireworks after the concert

This lovely concert, celebrating 75 years since the founding of the Glyndebourne Opera in 1934, featured several singers who are performing this season, mainly in Falstaff, but also in Rusalka, The Fairy Queen and Giulio Cesare. It also featured others with a strong Glyndebourne connection, such as Gerald Finley, Sarah Connolly, Emma Bell, and Kate Royal, who were all in the Glyndebourne chorus at one time, along with such luminaries as Thomas Allen, Sergei Leiferkus, Felicity Lott, and Anne Sofie von Otter. The orchestra played stirringly under the baton of music director Vladimir Jurowski, and I particularly liked the performances of Thomas Allen as Figaro in Act I of Rossini’s Barber, of Gerald Finley as Wolfram in Act III of Tannhäuser, of Sergei Leiferkus as the eponymous character in Rachmaninov’s Aleko, of Anne Sofie von Otter singing the habañera from Carmen, of Felicity Lott and Thomas Allen singing the delightful duet between Hanna and Danilo at the end of Lehar’s Merry Widow, plus Felicity Lott, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Lucy Crowe in the final trio from Rosenkavalier. A list of what was performed is given below — unfortunately Brandon Jovanovich was unable to sing, so his excerpt from Werther and his presence as Otello in the first item were cancelled. Apart from this the only disappointment was Danielle de Niese as Norina in Act I of Don Pasquale, whose voice seemed somewhat screechy in a cavatina that lacked the charm and subtlety it ought to have had.

Otello: Paolo Battaglia as Montano, Gerald Finley as Iago, Alasdair Elliott as Roderigo and Peter Hoare as Cassio sang the beginning of Act I before the entry of Otello.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia: Thomas Allen sang Largo al facotum, Figaro’s description of his own occupation in Act I. This was delightful and really got the evening going.

L’italiana in Algeri: Marie-Nicole Lemieux went from suffering to scheming in Isabella’s Cruda sorte! from Act I.

Don Pasquale: Danielle de Niese sang Norina’s Quel guardo il cavaliere, but seemed to be trying too hard.

La clemenza di Tito: Sarah Connolly sang Sesto’s Act I aria Parto, parto ma tu, ben mio to his beloved Vittelia.

Idomeneo: Emma Bell as Elletra joined the Glyndebourne chorus singing Placido è il mar, evoking a calm sea and the prospect of a prosperous voyage, before the onset of a terrifying storm at the end of Act II.

Die Meistersinger: the orchestral prelude to Act III.

Tannhäuser: Gerald Finley sang Wolfram’s melancholy farewell to Elisabeth, O du mein holder Abendstern, addressed to the evening star.

Khovanshchina: Larissa Diadkova gave a powerful rendering of Martha’s prophecy to Prince Golitsyn in Act II, predicting his disgrace and exile.

Aleko: Sergei Leiferkus sang a cavatina by the eponymous character in this Rachmaninov opera. He sang superbly, with excellent diction.

Carmen: Anne Sofie von Otter sang the habañera, her body, arm and hand movements conveying Carmen’s cavalier attitude to love.

Manon: Kate Royal sang Adieu notre petite table from Act II, as she prepares to deceive Des Grieux and leave the home she has shared with him.

Die lustige Witwe: Felicity Lott and Thomas Allen sang that wonderful duet Lippen schweigen between Hanna and Danilo at the end of the opera.

La Boheme: Ana Maria Martinez sang Mimi’s charming Si, mi chiamano Mimi from Act I.

Der Rosenkavalier: Felicity Lott as the Marschallin, Anne Sofie von Otter as Octavian, and Lucy Crowe as Sophie in the trio at the end of the opera, starting with the Marschallin’s Hab’mir’s gelobt.

Le nozze di Figaro: The finale of the opera with Kate Royal as the Countess, Gerald Finley as the Count, Jennifer Holloway as Cherubino, Danielle de Niese as Susanna, and Matthew Rose as Figaro.

Arrrh it has been a while since i have updated. Maybe it is because Zoe has been updating her blog (“link in the side bar!”) and probably stole my blogging powers (i just started watching Heroes- can you tell?). A lot has happen actually, and it was my first day free of exams yesterday, but i was being all moody and decided i would rather talk to the living room floor than blog.

Me: Hello floor i have decided to lie on you a while! Is that okay?

Floor: (is unable to talk, because it is the floor)

Me: I am going to take that as a yes (*stretches herself onto floor*). You know we have a lot to catch up on! Why don’t we talk about your day first?

Floor: (if it could talk- it would be saying “helloooo! inanimate object you are talking to here! Sheesh!”)

Me: Fine then! Be that way! (*storms off*)

Floor: (is still unable to talk, but does the floor equivalent of breathing a sigh of relief)

Anyway, like i said, i am free from the metaphorical, oppressive yoke of GCSEs (…i once used that phrase in a history exam, but about Oliver Cromwell). Err, i actually have no plans. go me. Last Saturday i did actually go out to Emma’s Party (it was Emma’s birthday the next day, plus it was a leaving party because she is leaving next year which sucks! Especially because 2 other people, Alex and Hannah, are also leaving from my History Class. I loved that class so much!) which was in a park. And when you get teenagers in a park, you get alcohol (indeed. this is the main reason why cheap cider companies are still in business). I didn’t actually drink that much (despite telling Rachel after exams all i would be spending by days getting drunk in a field) and it was quite fun because there were people there i don’t usually hang out with outside of school but then again completely and utterly awkward because Emma got really drunk and upset about her friends leaving without saying goodbye…(sorry “Only Women Bleed” just came on, and so now I’m just reliving the party in slow motion. Only with scorpions attacking us for some reason). Afterwards me, Goldie, Isabel and Fia met up with Divya and we went to starbucks for a while. Then omfg we spontaneously decided to go to Wagamama’s! (what exciting lives we all lead). Which was amusing because Divya doesn’t know how to use chopsticks (she stabbed her dumplings) and they challenged me to think of someone i have a crush on under 30 (still trying to think of one).

Then on Sunday, i went to the opera rather randomly. Not just like the opera but Glyndebourne which is this country house and opera house out in Sussex and it is all crazy posh and has a ha-ha (which is actually a small ditch to keep out sheep. but it deserves a mention). I like to think me and my mum are the only people who get geared up to see Handel’s Julius Caesar by pumping out the Fleetwood Mac, Heart and the like (also, my mother randomly loves the song “Family Affairs” by Mary J Blige, i mean who doesn’t?). It was a wonderfully sunny  day spent eating picnic food, pretending to be posh whilst sitting on an ikea blanket and heatedly debating if “guy over there” was Jonathan Ross or not. The opera itself had some amazing performances (though there were some cast changes), creepy counter-tenors (seriously counter-tenors scare me a little), lesbian kisses (because Julius Caesar is played by a woman because of the type of music or something. Maybe Handel was just into that kind of thing), shiny costumes and annoying surtitles (why have surtitles if you are not going to use them!?!?). Though sometimes i wasn’t really paying any attention because the first act was crazy long and i had standing tickets and achey feet from wearing new high heeled shoes (because my other shoes were apparently not posh enough for the opera). Still. Murder, revenge, seduction, betrayal, people presenting severed heads as gifts…you can’t say it wasn’t interesting.

After my last exam on Tuesday i celebrated with Zoe and Divya by being fat. By which i mean going to the exotic fast food chain which is McDonald’s. Yaaaay. Then yesterday i watched my DVD of The Princess Bride, which freaked me out because the picture quality is so much better than my old video. I also ate a lot of cookies yesterday because my brother had his girlfriend around and that always means lots of food (she makes me tea, it’s all good). I was planning on watching my new Invasion of the Body Snatchers DVD because i have been thinking about it a lot (plus, because it’s old it is really cheap) because dammit i miss Leonard Nimoy (plus, i wanted to see if he did actually wear paisley in that film. I like to think he did, but probably not) (…yeah i was having this conversation with Fia about how i need to fight Paisley because it is the creation of the Devil…never mind). Other than that, no real plans.

Actually i will probably be watching Heroes which i have become addicted to because i can’t watch Star Trek (it has Sulu George Takei in it as well as Zachary Quinto! Plus i totally laughed about Takei’s license plate number being NCC-1701…because i am so much of a loser i look forward to “Star Trek Saturday” on Lol Celebs). It always ends on a cliffhanger! I know. i’m watching it after everybody else. But still it is very good and yes i am totally loving all implied brain eating. (seriously: an inventive serial killer who drink tea and has superpowers…love. love so much. Plus seeing as he used to be a watchmaker, i bet i could finally get enough watches to make that watch-jacket i have always wanted).

So anyway now that i have finished updating this i can get back to talking to the floor.

Hello Floor!

(…again: this should be the name of Adam’s Band)

This blog will bring you regular news from the London Philharmonic Orchestra: alerts about the next concerts, links to reviews so that you can see what the critics thought, and updates on recordings, community projects and more.

June 15 marked the end of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert season for this year.  From September to June we give around 100 concerts – with series in London, Brighton, Eastbourne and lots of international touring.   And then in the summer the orchestra takes up residence at Glyndebourne Festival Opera  for four months, performing 4-5 different operas.  It’s a chance to release the pressure of rehearsing a different programme for each concert, and to enjoy repeating a work up to 15 times, with the musical development that continues to happen as orchestra and singers have time to experiment.

Ooops! It’s been a while since we have posted anything – apologies! It certainly doesn’t mean that the Orchestra hasn’t been doing anything – we’ll do a post next week about what the OAE is up to over the summer.

Orchestra pit

One of the things we’re up to is playing down at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where we are the

Auditorium

Associate Orchestra. A couple of weeks ago the office team was lucky enough to go to the final rehearsal of Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Its a fantastic production full of energy, passion and Bollywood dance moves! Here are a couple of pictures we snatched just before curtain-up.

After receiving Eliza’s comment about her work on the Tupper brothers (see ‘comments’ on the right), I was looking up TUPPER and LE MARCHANT – and surprise! found this book.

Lucky Michael Boyes sounds like a man right up my alley: according to this Cotswold Journal article the seed for his book came ‘after he retrieved diary extracts written by the late Rev. Robert Le Marchant in 1997.’ [Robert was born in 1819 and died in 1915.] How familiar such thoughts as ‘”Although the diary in itself was not enough to make up a book, the entries provided a prompt to find out more about the social life of that particular period.”‘ And what ‘fortune’ Mr Boyes has had: ‘…the discovery of some missing diaries and a collection of journals and letters from the Le Marchant sons serving in the military forces provided a turning point for the author.’ And I’m so jealous when reading such as: ‘”The project took a further twist when I learned that family letters and journals had been auctioned in London [!]. I was able to contact the buyer [!!] and bought them off him [!!!].”‘ (Contrast this to my lack of luck in obtaining Richard Seymour’s diaries; see Where Art Thou?)

More later as I learn more (especially how the Rev. Robert fits into my Le Marchant family tree = whose son was he?). This article makes for interesting reading on the immediate family; and this article mentions the Christies! Though how funny to read ‘…he married Mary Christie, the daughter of a prosperous man from Glyndebourne‘. Indeed! (as an opera fan, I was thrilled to think of Elizabeth Gosling’s relationship to Glyndebourne!!) [Though a £20,000 dowery? Mary Gosling evidently had that amount decades before, in 1826!]

And Boyes is back with a book on five of the six Le Marchant sons (though I must say I have more interest in those Old Maid daughters…). There are also portraits at NGP (see, especially Adm. Evelyn Robert Le Marchant).

GOSH: Michael’s Boyes has an ‘illustrated’ talk on the Ladies of Little Rissington on May 31st!

Oh…. so little money… so little TIME! (and time to go to bed: it’s nearing 1:30 a.m. as I type this.)

I am a lucky sausage.  As well as all these lovely Covent Garden and ENO performances of late, I got tickets for Glyndebourne.  Giulio Cesare, no less.  That production on the DVDs.  Woo-hoo.  Not sure it hadn’t gone a little off-the-boil though. 

I think the performances were - pretty much universally – a little more ‘knowing’ than they were on the DVD or during the first run.  Nods and winks – and even a bit of mugging – was thrown in to a production which, for all of that, still has a remarkable energy and life in it.  It really is a striking piece of theatre.  If you are a real Handel devotee and aficionado, I’m sure you would revel in an ’authentic period’ production of this piece.  For the rest of us (six hours of Wagner, yes; four hours of Handel, ummm…) we need a bit of oomph added.  Otherwise it can get a bit long… 

But, bloody hell, was it long…  The third act, in particular, had that structure that is also apparent in Mozart:  everyone has a ‘number’ to deliver, so that half-way through, suddenly the formula becomes apparent.  Oops, yes, Sesto is left on stage and, yes… it’s two lines of recitative and, oh… off we go into the aria.  And every aria has its da capo (is that the term?) repeat.  To paraphrase the immortal words of Joyce Grenfell describing Beethoven in a monologue:  “well, that’s the thing about Handel, isn’t it?  Just when you think it’s finished, the whole thing starts all over again…”

But these really are remarkable performances.  Is this is a solely Glyndebourne production, or has it travelled?  I ask because I can’t imagine the casting for some parts, other than that assembled…  Danielle de Niese is remarkable as the complete package – I can’t imagine a more ‘Cleopatra-ish’  exponent of that significant role.  If I were to carp, though, I wonder if the singing alone would quite stand up to scrutiny.  I thought her runs were a bit indistinct, and some of the pitching generally was just a bit out.  But you can’t fault that overall performance, it was genuinely a tour-de-force of theatricality.  She revelled in the comedy, delivered pathos in the tragedy (including a genuinely moving Piangerò) and moved like an Egyptian queen possessed.  Well worth the huge cheer she got.

And then there’s Christophe Dumaux.  My recollection of countertenors when I was at Oxford was that they could give fabulous dinner parties, were engaging company, and could sing impressively if a little starchily.  Whilst it’s never been my favourite voice type, I have to honestly say that none of them could back-flip, fall on stage in quite dramatic style or hop effortlessly on and off of tables.  Could anyone else perform this production’s vision of Tolomeo?  Again, a complete package seems to be demanded and this sort of Gesamtkunstwerk requirement really does seem to be a tall order…

At the centre of all this nonsense stood the wondrous Sarah Connolly as Cesare himself.  She really does manage to carry it off like no ‘trouser role’ I have ever come across.  She comes across like the sensitive ‘thinking man’ at the heart of all of this barbarity going on around her.  Cesare’s repudiation of the ‘gift’ of Pompey’s severed head, presented by Achilla from Tolomeo, is believable because he seems to be detached from the countervailing crudity of spitting countertenors and venom of embittered women.  It really works to detach the character and raise him above the goings on around him…  She is a tremendous performer, as demonstrated in the ROH Dido & Aeneas.

One thing about all of the abounded joy swilling around the production is the effect it has on poor Cornelia and Sesto.  In particular Cornelia:  every time she comes on stage she seems to drag behind her a dark cloud of gloom that blots out any of the uplifting material that has gone before, and makes for such an uncompromising contrast.  Patricia Bardon was, however, marvellous and displayed a rich voice and a remarkable stage presence.  Achilla threw her around the stage like a rag doll and she performed that marvellously, retaining a remarkable poise under assault. 

Such camp fun, it was all rounded off with a Cesare-Cleopatra wedding scene which somehow called to mind the Ascot scene in My Fair Lady.  Hats, parasols, big frocks, etc. and all in biege and pastels.  Had it come half an hour before, it would have been a little more welcome.  Even McVicar’s high-octane approach to the goings-on of Guilio Cesare couldn’t stave off a few longeurs in that one-after-the-other stand-and-deliver final act.

And the Glyndebourne experience?  Being early in the season, we booked a restaurant for reasons of weather:  Over & Middle Wallop, to be precise.  It was wonderful but added considerably to the cost.  The other downside (which does mean that a picnic is always the best option really) is that you are sort of at their behest.  You take however long to get out of the auditorium, then queue at the Maitre d’, then get sat down and the meal unfolds, but you miss the opportunity to wander and enjoy the grounds, watch the crowds (who, let’s face it, are always entertaining) and browse for nic-nacs and tat in the shop.  That’s half the Glyndebourne fun!  Well, that and the privilege of watching a fantastically well-drilled, collaborative, polished performance of an opera in an almost perfectly-sized theatre.

We have Tristan und Isolde in August.  I said I was a lucky sausage…