Wednesday, November 25, 2015

4.7.69 Visiting Ashford in Kent

4.7.69
Dear Mum, sorry about this rather scrappy-looking piece of aerogramme but it’s been sitting at the bottom of my satchel and isn’t worth throwing away!
I was invited down to Ashford in Kent last weekend by David Gorringe, and went down after a rehearsal in the morning. By a fast train it only takes about an hour and so I arrived in the middle of the afternoon. The weather was fabulous all weekend ˗ they say in the paper that this has been the hottest June in 20 years (and it’s still staying very hot) ˗ and so David and I went for a couple of lengthy walks. David has a dog ˗ about a year or more old ˗ which was there on the Saturday, but which had to go to the local kennels on Sunday as Dave’s parents were leaving the next morning for the Jersey Islands. The dog, Susie, was very friendly once it accepted me, but when first Dave and she met me at the station, it just ignored me all the time, which was rather curious.
Godinton House, circa 1985
Anyway, on the first afternoon, we went to an area nearby that has been left to the people of the town and can’t be built on and it's called the Warren. It’s what we’d call a bush area, rather like Maori Rd’s bush, but without any traffic close by. On the next afternoon we went for a rather longer walk through the town (after looking in at the local church, which goes back several hundred years, and is rather fabulous in its own quiet way) and then went by rather devious ways (the way we should have gone was closed so we went round by the large Army Base, and across a cornfield) to a place called Godington Hall [think I mean Godinton House], which is one of those old Country Homes set in large grounds. This one still has some of the descendants living there ˗ it’s not so large that it needs to be turned over the National Trust ˗ and dates back to 1623, I think it was. It has a formal garden, which is absolutely fabulous, like something out of a film, and the house which we didn’t go into because we were both feeling rather tired by then, looks nice and cosy in spite of its size. We mainly wandered around the garden, which is full of statues, some of them slightly crumbling, and lily ponds and neatly cut trees, and walks, and ˗ well, I wanted to bring it all home with me but Dave wouldn’t let me. (I don’t know quite what is wrong with me today, but I don’t seem to be able to put down the right keys at all ˗ I have a touch of a sick headache; don’t know quite why, I think it’s a combination of overheated rooms (the English can’t believe that they don’t need heat in the summer) and late nights. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been catching bugs ˗ don’t do that anymore please ˗ there’s no one to look after you properly.)
[handwritten]
I sat in the bath this morning too long too, and though the ventilator is working there seems to be a curious smell about the air in there. Ten to one we’ll all be gassed in there one night ˗ in the flat I mean, not the bathroom.
London was in chaos yesterday ˗ I’m on the Blackheath station at the moment which reminded me ˗ half the tube lines were on strike and there was twice as much traffic on the streets and twice as many people trying to get to work by busses. I got to London Bridge by my normal train and decided to walk to Cheapside (I think) to get a bus to the Centre, but got myself lost for a hair-raising ten minutes. However, in this town, if you head in the right direction you eventually get to somewhere that looks familiar. Those three weeks of wandering around the place last September have stood me in good stead.
Next Thursday I’m to play at some sort of concert, accompanying a choir (of children, I think) and three singers. I only got the music yesterday and through there are some little problems I’ll probably survive.
Back to Ashford again. David’s parents were extremely nice and friendly, as you’d expect from Dave himself and I’ve been invited to go back anytime I want ˗ with or without Dave ˗ he’s now going off to Cardiff to join the Welsh Opera ˗ in August ˗ that’s where Jeff will be too.
On the Saturday night we went to a party given by people from Dave’s old Drama Group. Everyone there was single, which struck me as a little odd, when you consider they were of all age groups, up to the 50s. Except the host and hostess ˗ they were married, and one lady was divorced ˗ she’s the mother of a girlfriend of Dave’s and we went round and had coffee at her flat the next morning, and I got into an argument with her (in the most polite way) about whether the daughter in the flat below who’d become an R.C. [Roman Catholic] should go off to a convent and break her parents’ hearts. It seemed to me that they had each other anyway, and that she had more responsibility to herself than them. She’s going anyway.

Love, Mike.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

25.6.69 - Aussie composer & Alwin Nikolais

Undated, but possibly begun the same day as the previous letter. Consists of two aerogrammes, parts I and II. Both are handwritten.
Dear Mum, (started the same day as the previous letter) I started this off for some reason because I’d left something out and John arrived with 2 friends and I’ve forgotten what it was. (Quarter of an hour later) I’m now doing some more copying of James Robertson’s (incidentally he got the C.B.E!!!) edition of the parts of Schicchi ˗ in other words his idea of those things that are better, or different to Puccini’s! What I’d forgotten: recently, two of the students at the Centre here got me to play through some songs that they’re performing at Australia House. They’ve been composed by an Australian woman, and while, it seems to me, the actual vocal parts are quite pleasant and would make good pop songs (in fact I think she’d make a lot of money that way!) the accompaniments are absurd! Her idea to make them modern ˗ and her idea of modernity is to put quite wrong notes and harmonies all over the place which instead of making them exciting as she no doubt intends only make them difficult for the singer and make it appear that the accompanist is playing wrong chords! And yet these are to be performed. It makes me scared of ever putting anything before the public. Though I think at least that I have slightly more idea of what I want to do, and aim for that. [After all this pontificating, I fail to mention who the composer was. Disappointing!]
Know thyself is never more applicable than in the creative or entertainment business ˗ do what you can do and don’t try and be your next-door-neighbour! Jeff said this once too ˗ that everyone is given a certain talent and should know what that is and use it to its fullest extent. His father, he said, told him that no one is better than anyone else ˗ and it has certainly given Jeff plenty of confidence! Jeff is definitely the most down-to-earth tenor I’ve known, even though the fact that he is a tenor weighs a little against him (I’m very rude, I’m afraid), but he has his feet fairly firmly on the ground, and says not so much what he thinks, but what he knows ˗ Hmm, what a curious ramble this is!
(Next day.) I’ve just stood thru a performance given by the Alwin Nikolais Dance Group, at the old Sadlers Wells theatre. The music, or perhaps it should be, the sound, consisted of electronic noises, some giving quite a definitive rhythm, some seeming to do nothing but ramble. The opening piece was done by five dancers (whether the dancers were men or women throughout made no difference, except in one of the longer pieces) each holding two suction-like devices with which they performed. During the whole evening no one specifically ‘danced,’ but intertwined. The next piece had three dancers inside sack-like affairs, with no apparent opening, but made of such a material that they went slack or expanded as the person moved about inside. Then there was a solo, and then the entire group of ten tripped across the stage holding two streamers each which were attached to the side they entered from, and then performed in and around and on and under these streamers, which were again sufficiently pliable to be sat on at one stage.
[Part II]
These first four items seemed purely of an entertaining variety, but the second section of the programme consisted of a long piece entitled, Tent and which consisted of the group coming on with another of these pliable materials, this time a large circular affair which had a hole in its centre big enough for all the dancers to stand in at once. After some preliminaries, several balls with some sort of attachments about a yard below them descended and somehow picked up certain spots of the ‘tent’ so that it could be raised from the outside or the central circle. And this was done without any apparent assistance from those on stage ˗ but the attachments were strong enough to allow the dancers to play and pull at both the balls and the tent at different times. From then on the group seemed to represent humanity and the tent some sort of constantly intervening oppression which would overtake them and force them down and cause them to change or start again.
(Next day ˗ the last lot was written in the train, so that’s the reason for then handwriting being even more illegible than ever!) During the course of the dance an eternal triangle, with a man and two women, kept forming itself, but just as part of the detail of what else went on. I think it would probably need a second viewing to really get a lot more from it. The last ballet was a piece taken from an act of an apparently full-length ballet called Vaudeville and had the entire group, again, this time dressed in red and purple costumes and each with metal props consisting of a two-legged affair joined in two places, or perhaps it was three ˗ once across the top and yes, I think, twice further down, like this. [Drawing of something with two uprights and three cross pieces included.] These they used as gates, fences, doors, beds, you name it! Finally they built a house with it, which in the course of a ‘storm’ (?) blew up! All through this piece they’d suddenly stop when the music stopped, all prance (as only dancers can) to the front of the stage, and all talk at once to the audience. The whole thing was quite hysterical!
There was one girl who was ‘different’ from everyone else ˗ she took bigger skips (?) and this upset all the others quite a lot. It was a very funny and yet also a very disturbing piece, though perhaps not as much as the middle ballet had been.
I’m just now reading a book on Verdi, by a man called Frank Walker, and he has set out to clear up all the spurious facts surrounding Verdi’s life by the use of lots and lots of letters. There’s very little about his music ˗ it concentrates on the people involved. All the other biographies I’ve read have been semi-fictional and bad. This one keeps on referring to them and saying, ‘Tut, tut, tut’, ‘so and so’ always gets the facts wrong!! [This book was The Man Verdi, published 1963,by a man who’d spent his career as a talent agent. It's no longer in print, but can be downloaded here in various formats.]

Love Mike.

Friday, November 20, 2015

25.6.69 - The year begins to wind up

25.6.69

Dear Mum, I’ve just been down to the shop to see if I could get a card for Daphne and Jack, but they had nothing that was either sufficiently funny or pleasant, so I’ll have to get you to pass on my congratulations. I don’t think I remember their address anyway. (Why did they call him Peter? We’ve surely got enough confusion in this family already. [Jack was my mother’s youngest brother, and Peter he and Daphne’s fifth child, their first boy. I already had another cousin called Peter.] They’re certainly determined not to let the Elgin Road Hannagans beat them are they? [Terry was older than Jack and he and his wife Monica had their fifth ˗ and last ˗ child in 1968.]

And what about this snow? You poor old things. Our weather is staying fairly warm, although it has been raining for the last couple of days. I think it’s clearing now. This week is our last with formal lessons, and we’re saying goodbye to the various teachers; next week we start rehearsals most of the time. The German teacher said she would take me on as a private pupil if I wished, though I don't know if I could afford it. But if I can, she’s certainly worth keeping on with.

We’re rehearsing two operas (The Consul is also going on but I’m not working on it) and they are Gianni Schicchi, which the Centre did last term but which I didn’t work on, and Il Tabarro, which is another one in the trio of operas that go under the heading of Il Trittico, and is, of course, by Puccini. We had our first production rehearsal today with Ande Anderson, and things seemed to be going fairly smoothly.

I don’t know if I told you that, a while back, when I was sitting in the train one night waiting for it to leave Charing Cross, I was marking some music ˗ actually I was putting some new words into a vocal score ˗ when a young negro fellow came along and looked over my shoulder through the window. I didn’t notice him at first, and got a bit of a shock! Anyway, he jumps in the carriage and sits down next to me and starts telling me about his interest in playing the classical guitar, and so we talked on and off until Blackheath. Well, on Monday, I was sitting in a carriage again, doing a crossword, when a figure went flying past, and then came back, and it was the same guy again. And he popped into the train, and again started talking. This is quite unusual here, which is what makes it worth telling ˗ it’s so rare than anyone will talk to you in a train ˗ in fact people wouldn’t say anything if you stood on their foot; I don’t think they’d expect you to apologise! This is how far they’ve taken this sort of don’t speak to your neighbour bit. This time he was saying how he had to learn a whole two-page spiel for the next day to use in his job as a door-to-door salesman for an encyclopedia firm! He’s an engineering student I think normally, and this is a sort of holiday job.

At present at the Centre ˗ well yesterday, anyway ˗ they were holding auditions for singers and reps, and I went in to listen for a moment and suddenly realised that the pianist auditioning was Bill Southgate ˗ do you remember him? And he was apparently very nervous (though I didn’t hear him do the stuff he’d prepared) because when it came to doing sight-reading he made some fearful blues! (Am I glad I didn’t have to audition there!) [I auditioned by tape from NZ, I think.]  I went and had a cuppa with him afterwards and I think he was in a bit of a state, because he was rambling a bit! Anyway I got his address from him, and I must go and see him. [Bill Southgate - or WilliamSouthgate as he is more usually known these days - was from Dunedin, and eventually would become one of New Zealand’s better-known conductors. Strangely, when my wife and I came back from the UK in 1974, we met the Southgates at Auckland airport; they’d just returned as well.]

I think we’re talking about different things as regards the mysterious palette knife (!) ˗ I think I know what a spatula is, but wasn’t there a long (about 8 ˗ 10 inches, plus handle) implement, about an inch wide, and with a rounded end?? It’s driving me mad ˗ surely that isn’t a spatula?

Again, don’t worry about Postal Notes; I’m surviving quite well, thank you, and though they are nice when they do come, they aren’t part of my contract or anything! I’ve sent a letter to Monica H[annagan, wife of Terry] and Co, but I haven’t to the Stokes ˗ suppose I should, shouldn’t I? I’ll try and do it. Aerogrammes are actually cheaper than postcards ˗ you know? ˗ but harder, even for me, to fill up! [I have no idea why I was supposed to be writing, unless it was just a matter of keeping in touch with Dunedin relatives I’d had a great deal to do with over the years.]

I suppose as usual it is too late to suggest another film for you to go and see, but one called The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is superb, and except perhaps for one small sequence (which I think in this case is probably necessary) I think you would find it wonderful. It’s a deaf-mute trying to live amongst normal people, and the fact that no one else realises he is as lonely as the ones he helps. The acting is unbelievable. 
We went to a rehearsal of Macbeth, the opera, at the Garden yesterday ˗ what an appalling production ˗ it never fails to amaze me just how bad some of their productions are ˗ they live so far in the past that you’d think they’d never heard of the word imagination. [ElenaSouliotis made her debut at Covent Garden as Lady Macbeth in this production, as well as singing the role for the first time.]

Last Friday our normal lecture at the Centre was replaced by a talk with films at the Generating Board Theatre in Newgate St. The films were made by the man who talked ˗ he’s an ex-executive film man, and is experimenting, now that he has the time, with film and music. The two examples he showed us were very interesting (his name is James Archibald and you’ll see it occasionally on some of the 50s films ˗ English ˗ on TV) but the one he likes more of the two seemed to me less good. We went back to the Centre with him (Jeff took he and J Robertson)(and me) and he said it was because I’d only seen half of his favourite: and that was about half an hour! Love, Mike. [I don’t remember this at all, and I’m not sure quite why people from the Centre went to it.]

Sunday, November 15, 2015

22.6.69: Berlioz, radio and TV

22.6.69

Dear Mum, I’m still wending my happy way thru all your birthday presents and probably won’t have any teeth left by the time I’m finished! Didn’t I tell you that I did usher in St Paul’s? Actually I didn’t really usher, I just stood at the door and collected tickets and told people where to go. The concerts themselves were a little disappointing. Because St Paul’s is little more than one great echo chamber, only the people right at the front could get a satisfactory effect; although apparently it recorded very well. I stood at the back on both nights and consequently heard much of it as a not very remarkable blur. The most thrilling moment was, as it had been at home in Christchurch, when the ten tympani players different groups of brass players (scattered all over St Pauls) all played at once in that massive Dies Irae section in the Requiem. St Paul’s, for all that it stood up to the bombing of the last war, was actually trembling! Not the most pleasant of effects ˗ with the feeling that rather a large number of tons of masonry might be about to descend on your head at any moment!

How are all the invalids? Give my love to them all ˗ a bit belatedly, I’m afraid. I’ve been wracking my brains to try and remember if you actually said what was wrong with Mary and I don’t know if you did. I seem to remember something about it’s being similar to your operation ˗ but am I right or not?

I have the Verdi Requiem playing rather loudly in my ear at the moment (the other was the Berlioz) ˗ it never ceases to amaze me just how beautiful it is. I did some coaching with a mezzo on it earlier this year, and like it all the more each time I hear it.

I’ve been writing some more music, recently. I find it gets something out of my system, and though it would be nice to have some of it performed eventually, that particular aspect of it doesn’t greatly bother me.

The other evening David, Hazel and I walked down to Victoria thru St James Park to see a film, and on the way back (after we’d played on the by-then-deserted swings and see-saws in the Park!) we were strolling along frightening each other when 2 guys who were coming towards us suddenly stopped in front of us, and poked 2 white, long objects at us! After the initial shock I realised they were only rolled-up newspapers (!) but it was worrying for a moment. Anyway they were trying to find someone who had belted one of them on the head, for heaven’s sake! They went off muttering, as we were obviously very harmless. There seemed to be a lot of bodies wandering around the Park (and this was about 11.30) and I certainly would never go in there alone at that time of night.


We’ve had Scottish TV down over the last week filming round the place and generally being a nuisance. I’m in two scenes, one of which they should use, with me seated at a piano waiting for a rehearsal to start, and also in the Italian lesson, which they’ll probably cut. Also, I forgot to tell you I was interviewed recently for the overseas transmission which should turn up at home eventually! If they don’t cut what I said right down. I felt surprisingly calm about it all, mainly because I got so little warning, I think! I’m also playing in the background of another rehearsal they recorded, so you never know ˗ I might be heard yet, love Mike.  

13.6.69 Family kerfuffles, cake and flat-letting

13.6.69
[handwritten]

Dear Mum, it never ceases to amaze me how little we really ever get to know anyone else. I don't think I told you last time about the situation up at the Crowls. Nina barely made an appearance all weekend. She was at the crisis point of one of her depressive periods, it seems. She lives on drugs, because of illness, although if she didn’t she would be alive, but rather weak. Anyway normally she’s very pleasant, at least to me, but this weekend she, as I say, hardly appeared, even for meals. On the way back to the station, however, I mentioned to Reg that Nina hadn’t seemed to be herself for quite some time (even the previous time I’d been there) and it set off a reaction from Reg which rather surprised me ˗ not at me, I hasten to add, in case you think I’d been putting my foot in it ˗ about how difficult Nina was to live with altogether! Apparently she takes her illness out on them, even more so on Mavis according to Reg. I said something to him, trying to see her side of it, and he said that was fair enough but that was no reason for her to be so bloody-minded!! Strong words for Mr Crowl! Anyway things seemed to have sorted themselves out again up there as R & M are going on holiday on Monday and Nina is to look after Margaret.

15.6.69

Your parcel arrived yesterday. Thank you very, very much. I’ve already started on the fudge and biscuits. The cake, I’m afraid, due to the knocking about these parcels get, had some of the icing broken up, and I’m afraid it’s a trifle difficult to read what was on top. Is it Musical Birthday Michael? Anyway, the icing tastes great and no doubt the cake will too. I’ll have to eat it all myself probably ˗ Jeff and John don’t eat cake, and Julie (all the J’s!) who’s barely here these days, never eats anything that anybody else has, preferring not to risk being poisoned, it might seem!! Mad, I call it.

The parcel arrived on Saturday morning when I was lying in the bath trying to get my back cleaned up ˗ it’s peeling over everything ˗ and I had to get out and answer the door! Already the same morning, I’d been rudely awoken (about 10 I must admit) by 3 people wanting to see the flat. They were very nice all the same, but it’s a bit of a bind having people calling in when the place is in a mess. You get no warning, you see. They said they would take it, but so did 4 young ladies who called last week. And I had a married couple in one other night.

The weather is keeping up very well here ˗ it’s really hot hot, and seems to want to continue. I’ve been making the most of it naturally, love Mike.


PS How do I boil new potatoes and still make them taste nice? Mine always seem to taste very dry. I’ve been playing with a ‘Fred’ for about an hour this afternoon ˗ think it belongs next door. 

9.6.69 Hampton Court and Brighton Beach

9.6.69
Dear Mum, sorry it’s rather a while since I’ve written ˗ in fact I have been getting slack, I’m afraid, on my letter writing in general. I got an answer back from Prof Platt thanking me for writing, but it was a very short letter ˗ about ten lines, I think ˗ he wanted to know because he says Murray Holmes is thinking of coming over ˗ I don’t know what he intends doing over here, though. [Nor do I now remember who this man was.]

We’ve been having fabulous weather here over the last weekend, and it’s still fine in fact ˗ temperatures up in the 70s.

On Sat I went with Mike to Weybridge which is near Hampton Court, for lunch with one of his girlfriends ˗ her name is Maureen, but for some reason she’s called Mickey! Weybridge is quite a way from London Central ˗ about forty minutes by not very fast train (they have fast trains which take you direct, and semi-fast ones that stop at some stations, and not very fast ones which stop occasionally, and slow ones which take all day to get there) and is one of the wealthy areas, like Blackheath, with a pretence at being in the country ˗ though Weybridge succeeds rather more than Blackheath does. Anyway, after lunch we went to Hampton Court and spent some time there, and though the place has certain fascinations, it isn’t as interesting as some other spots. It has the distinction of having no two chimneys alike ˗ they each have a different pattern, and there are dozens of chimneys ˗ and of housing lots of grace and favour people ˗ ones who live in royal apartments (there are some in London too), rent free, because of some royal relationship or service. But it isn’t very looked after generally speaking ˗ certainly not inside in the royal apartments where the furniture just looks patchy instead of antique, and where they have some of the dreariest paintings I’ve ever seen. Plus the fact that there is so much you can’t see there that it gets a little frustrating after a while running constantly into No Admittance signs.

We went in the Maze, which is in a rather bad way ˗ people have rather wrecked it at various times by trampling through the hedges, and now most of the hedges have iron fences in their centres which rather spoils the attractiveness. But it’s not a bad maze ˗ everyone goes around with silly grins on their faces ˗ there are several dead end paths, and no one coming out of one tells the people going into it that it is a dead end. There are some very nice formal gardens there ˗ one with tiny hedges about six inches high all in designs with flowers between ˗ but only ones that aren’t going to grow higher than the hedges. And others with statues and fountains in them.

The building is rather fabulous ˗ especially the old Tudor bits which they are gradually restoring to something of their former beauty, and they are also restoring the massive murals ˗ some walls are nothing but paintings, and the ceilings too. They have cleaned these up and they look very bright. One room is full of weapons, but all arranged in geometrical designs and hung on the walls, so that a hundred pistols in a circle cease to have their warfaring value and become something of beauty.

After the Court we went down to Kevin’s pub ˗ about 500 yards from the Palace gates, and sat there for quite a while talking.  It is actually quite an old building, but what looks like age inside it is apparently phoney, and it was decorated in an old style just a few years ago! [This wasn’t a pub that Kevin Flaherty owned, but one he worked in for a time.] After this we we went and had a very nice Chinese meal, and then finally went home. [This obviously wasn’t the time I had an Indian meal that nearly burnt my mouth out; something I thought happened near Hampton Court.]

Brighton Beach, about 1967
by Tony Ray-Jones
Yesterday about eight of us from the Centre went to Brighton, and it turned out to be the hottest day [in Dunedin; I’m not sure what kids I’m referring to. Possibly my cousins.] ˗ remember? ˗ we all came home looking like fresh beetroots and could barely get dressed or sleep or anything. I slept very well last night, just by ignoring the discomforts I did feel, and except for my legs (the backs of them of course!) and back, which are both rather tender, particularly when I’m sitting, I’m not too bad. But what a day! It made life worthwhile and I even felt like swimming, which surprised me as I don’t normally like sea water. But there were barely any waves, and it was nowhere (that I went in) very deep. But the beach was PEBBLES! and the area between the ball and heel of both my feet have great blue bruises on them ˗ it was impossible to walk comfortably ˗ though at least there was only sand under the water.
this year. Well, we lay on the beach (and swam, twice, in extremely cold, but very buoyant water) for something like four hours, and naturally we all look rather more than pink today. I knew I was getting more burnt than I ought, but it was just so wonderful to be in actual sunshine that actually lasted for more than an hour that I couldn’t resist it. Fortunately I didn’t get burnt as much as that time the kids and I went to St Kilda

I’m going to have to leave this flat ˗ John has now decided that he needs a flat in North London, because we’re too far away from his Royal College. Actually I don’t mind (apart from having felt quite settled here) because it gives me an excuse to part with him and it seems as though I may be able to go into a flat with Davids Syrus and Gorringe ˗ who both have to move shortly. And anyway, North London is more central ˗ especially if you’ve missed a train late at night. Strange isn’t it that Jeff and I get on well together, and that we both find John rather difficult to get on with. [handwritten] Jeff and I, for example, have just been for a long walk around Blackheath, which is something John always reckoned he’d do, but never would. John always considers himself to be an intellectual ˗ with the inference that we’re not ˗ you know? Not to worry, love, Mike. 

Saturday, November 14, 2015

24.5.69 Peter Grimes and others

24.5.69

Dear Mum, you’ll never guess where I’ve just been. In the ROYAL BOX at Covent Garden. It is a great big box, with a little room behind it where we had iced champagne ˗ and coffee ˗ and which has its own private entrance, and loo. That’s about as close as I’ll ever get to royalty I think! We (the two designers of the mid-term pieces, and David Syrus) were invited to go along by John Kentish, our Director of Studies, and the producer of Manon. Don’t ask me how he happened to have the Royal Box for the occasion ˗ but it was great to see the doormen and ushers etc sort of doing slight double-takes when they realised I wasn’t one of your normal paying people! (Actually the Garden is full of snobs anyway ˗ and I’m not helping by the sound of that last sentence! ˗ especially those who are Friends of the Garden: people who support the Garden by subscriptions and by which they get preferential bookings, etc. They are frequently completely ignorant, and don’t seem to be afraid of showing the fact. God knows what they think about as they sit thru hour upon hour of singing in foreign languages. Some of them came on the last night of the mid-terms and you’d think they own the place.) [Here endeth Crowl’s ongoing inverse snobbery ˗ for the moment.] Mr Kentish couldn’t come in the end but his wife was there with two friends, a Mr and Mrs Michael Dodd, I think, and they were rather charming and not too far above us menials. (We had our own special waiter for the box too!)

Jon Vickers as Peter Grimes
The opera, after all that, was Peter Grimes: Britten, who else? And we could have spat on the conductor (according to Mrs Kentish); it was Colin Davis, one of the most dynamic conductors around, and the tenor was Jon Vickers, who is just unbelievably great. The sort of person I’ll my grandchildren about. [But haven’t yet!] (We were closer to him in the Opera Centre canteen one day than tonight, but it was still very exciting being right on top of the orchestra, and having a close-up view of the stage. Well, of most of it. There is a certain disadvantage about a box ˗ it’s at the side of course, and so you can’t see one side of the stage at all. And all the action happened down on our side, which meant we had to strain a little to see. I don’t know how the Queen gets on! But what a fabulous opera this is. It keeps hitting you time and again, and really is probably the greatest opera Britten has written, so far as sheer drama goes. It has everything (the six big sea pictures for a start, between scene changes) [so overwhelmed, obviously, that I increased the number of the Four Sea Interludes, as they’re actually known], off-stage bands, tremendous chorus sections, storms, kids, a complete scene without orchestra, where Grimes is accompanied only by an off-stage dream chorus and a fog-horn (!) and where he goes quite mad (this was terrific!), riots, drums played by the singers. You name it! [On the night Colin Davis collapsed, in 2011, and fell from the orchestral pit podium at Covent Garden, his job as conductor for that performance was taken over by David Syrus, who had been at the Garden since leaving the Opera Centre.]

On Sunday evening David G and I went to a concert at the Festival Hall, mainly because Jennifer Vyvyan, whom he’s worked with, and likes a lot, and she was singing the solo in Britten’s Les Illuminations. Guilini was conducting, and thought the audience got up on its feet and clapped him at the end; I don’t know that I think he’s all that great. The Britten was fabulous, and but the Schubert Fifth [Symphony] that preceded it was nothing startling. (I was going to say to write home about, but that seems a little contradictory.) The last item was the rather marvellous Romeo and Juliet suite by Berlioz, and being Berlioz it was very exciting and very sentimental and full of lush orchestrations and big tunes and funny odd bits, and generally very interesting.

Yesterday, being Whit (!) Monday, David and Hazel and I went out, first to the Regent’s Park Zoo, tho’ it wasn’t anything startling, and then later to Fiddler on the Roof (which I’d seen, but liked very much, in Sydney). This is a rather marvellous musical but the cast here has been doing it so long (it’s in its third year I think (that the whole thing didn’t quite have the magic of the previous occasion. [The Sydney production had been a real eye-opener, with a brilliant Hayes Gordon in the leading role; Alfie Bass played the lead in London, and was a real disappointment.]

[Handwritten] This is terrible ˗ I started this letter over a week ago and just keep not finishing it, and since then I’ve seen Peter Grimes again. Oh, it is fabulous. I’ve put my name down to usher for the 2 concerts in St Paul’s celebrating the Berlioz anniversary and that is going on in the next 2 nights.

On Saturday last I went to what I thought was a very good production of Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Old Vic ˗ marvellously costumed and moved (Laurence Olivier producted it). But other opinions have said that it wrecked the play by making it funny in the wrong places.

On Sunday I went to the last Boulez concert at the Festival Hall where they played more Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. It was a great concert and much more easy to take than the previous one I went to. They were all earlier works and still vaguely in the late Romantic type of sound.

Well, I better close here ˗ I’ve got to get home to do some work ˗ I’m at the Centre at the moment. I’m glad to hear you liked your present ˗ I thought the palette knife (is it?) was the thing you mightn’t use! Give my love to Fred, Mike.  

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

23.5.69 Birthday and mid-term shows

23.5.69

Dear Mum, glad to get your confirmation that you are okay ˗ please don’t worry about being terribly regular with letters, but I do like getting them ˗ I’m very selfish I’m afraid, and get a wee bit disappointed if I don’t get any mail for several days. Actually, so many odd things arrive me here that not many days do go past without something arriving.

Some more about the birthday. On the actual day, Hazel and I went out and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant ˗ David G was supposed to come too but got tied up with something else at the last minute. I was also allowed that morning to open something else they’d left on the day of the pre-b. (They’d given me a couple of crazy presents then.) It was a roll-collar nylon shirt, which everyone is wearing at the mo’, so I felt quite with it when I went into the Centre that day. Forgot to tell you ˗ Mike gave me two paperbacks (copies of which I’d had at home but didn’t bring!): The History of the Symphony, and Kathy gave me that terrible shocking book: Ulysses, which has just come out in paperback. Actually, there are some passages that even now seem (at least to me) a little purple, they are very down to earth, and I don’t think pornographic for their own sake ˗ they really stress just how human the characters are, and how little different any of us are from one another. Apart from these parts, the rest of the book is so fabulously written ˗ the English has to be read to be believed (!) and it really is marvellous. I don’t profess to understand all its classical references; though there is a short commentary at the back of the book, but I think it can be read without being entirely aware of them. [I’m intrigued to think that I might have actually read the book: I don’t recall doing so, and a later attempt to get into it left me unenthused after the first few pages. My comments about the book being shocking probably relate to the showing of the movie version a few years earlier: in New Zealand the audiences were segregated by sex, so concerned was the censor at some of the scenes.Which, it turned out, weren’t any worse than some of the European movies I’d seen in Dunedin.]

The Crowls gave me a cheque for £2, did I tell you? And Margaret gave me a very nice ballpoint pen. With your money ˗ or rather because it boosted the finances somewhat ˗ I went and got a copy of Der Rosenkavalier vocal score ˗ £4˗10 (!), but since we’re doing it in class for the next 3 weeks I thought I may as well have a copy.

This week we’ve had our mid-term performances on, and on the day of the first of them I felt so fed up with the clothes that I normally wear to these, that I thought ‘Blow!! I’m going to dress a bit more interestingly for a change, and decided to get myself a waistcoat and a tie. Well I had to try 3 shops before I could a cloth waistcoat (they all have wool ones) but it was worth it, and I got a very nice beige (I think it is) for £3 something. The tie took a bit of choosing, but it is rather fabulous, and some of the really natty dressers round the Centre have complimented me. It’s basically a light (but not too much) blue, with (!) black, green and orange designs. I can hear you gasping from here! Actually it isn’t anywhere near as like a neon light as that sounds ˗ the price is what will really make you faint : 30/- !!! I must admit that was rather more than I expected it to be but it is pure silk, and I like it, and it was me birthday!

I had a nice surprise in German class the other day: the teacher asked me what I was doing at the end of the term, and I said having a holiday I think!, and she said would I like to go to Switzerland! Apparently she knows a lady who has contact with the Zurich opera house, and she said if I wrote her a letter telling what I’d done she’d pass it on to this woman and see if anything would come of it. So I’ve sent it off but am not going to worry about it anymore ˗ just let things take care of themselves. She said it was because I’d worked so hard at German that she thought she’d do something for me! Actually she has also let Dave Syrus in on it, but I shouldn’t think it’ll matter ˗ I’m neither expecting to get something or not to. (If that’s possible!)

For the mid-term shows we’ve been doing two operas: a bad re-hash of Manon by Massenet, called Portrait of Manon, which was either not written by Massenet or else just started by him, and finished by some hack. It has both a terrible plot and no climax ˗ just peters out. The other piece: Fiesta, by Milhaud, was written about 1958, and is very dissonant ˗ if you don’t know it (and still pretty dissonant if you do) but is rather exciting and horrible and atmospheric (tho’ less so with only piano accompaniment), and has been very well produced. The other piece gets there but hasn’t had such a competent man on it, and only just works. I’m playing for the Manon, and putting in odd notes in the bass for the Fiesta. And playing a bell for four bars!


There is also a demonstration of movement by the singers, and on the first night we found that there was a great gap in the timing while some of them got ready for Fiesta, so Alistair and I on the second night played a duet version of The Thieving Magpie overture! We’d been filling in time with it the previous day ˗ playing just for fun, and had to do quite a lot of work on it to tidy it up. (Secretly, we’ve been told it’s the hit of the show!) After we had done it the first night, Robertson came up to us and said that he didn’t think it was quite right it didn’t fit in with Fiesta straight after, but I said that that was because they’d started Fiesta too soon after it, and it had sounded as though David was playing wrong notes! He said not to do it again, but because he is away rehearsing Aida (and was last night) the stage managers went to Mr Kentish and asked him if we could do it again ˗ and so we did! Generally the shows have been going very well, tho’ last night wasn’t too hot and in a way I’ll be sorry to see them finished. Love Mike [I assume that I mean what I wrote, rather than that I wouldn’t be sorry to see them finished.]

P.S. I still have got over £200. I don’t believe it! Thank the Stokes for the card and cash, please. 
P.S. I wrote to Prof Platt ˗ finally ˗ hope he can follow it!
P.S.S. Go and see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang if it hasn’t already gone by

12.5.69 A birthday party and copying work

12.5.69

Dear Mum, the letter that should have followed up my last one immediately never has, so this will have to fill its place. Just a small point ˗ I notice that your letters aren’t coming with anywhere near the regularity that they were and since they have been coming at the rate of nearly two a week for the last eight months, I’m just wondering if there’s anything wrong ˗ you’re not ill or anything? I’m not in the least worried about their irregularity, and this isn’t a dig to get you writing the same number per week again or anything, but do let me know if you’re okay, won’t you? You’re not allowed to get sick any more than I am!

I was lying in bed the other night, on a particularly sleepless night, and suddenly remembered that my birthday was just around the corner ˗ so I said to Jeff, who also had trouble getting to sleep (we finally got up and had a cup of chocolate each ˗ about two!) that I thought I might give a party in the weekend preceding the actual date, and as things worked out I did. And it seemed to go off fairly well too. Hazel came down early and helped with the catering, which was very good, because it wouldn’t have been a patch on that otherwise, and about a dozen people came in all. David Gorringe and Hazel were the first to arrive, and since it was an absolutely perfect afternoon (I suggested they come down early) we went for a walk across the Heath and into Greenwich Park.

When we got back Michael was sitting on the bit of Heath nearest my place reading; he’d been there nearly 3/4 of an hour! Kevin came (and a kitten arrived from next door) and after we’d got the food ready, and it was still warm (we had all the doors open) we played cards for a while. Then as it was still fabulously mild outside, we went back on the Heath again, with Kate, who arrived just in time, and walked for ages, playing around in great style ˗ talk about second childhoods! We went back into the Park, just before it closed, and then returned home as it was getting dark. By this time Jeff had come back with Moyra Paterson (from the Centre; a Scots girl and a very down-to-earth person) and her flatmate (also LOC) Joyce; they’d been there for a bit before we came back. I felt that we’d been a bit rude going out, and apologised, but it seemed a pity to waste the weather (it’s been up to 73 degrees today, they said) and they didn’t really seem to mind. [I think the UK must still have been using Fahrenheit at this point.]

John arrived eventually; he’s still going about in a half-with-us state ˗ was supposed to start a new job today, and was also supposed to be coming back here to stay last night, but didn’t. I quite honestly think he’s mad keeping a flat on when he either hasn’t enough money to afford it (or says he hasn’t; I have my doubts) or just never stays here! He took Hazel and David home last night after the party, and apparently said to them on the way home ‘I don’t think Michael quite understands me yet! ˗ I’m afraid that very few other people do either. Julie thinks he’s barmy!  (Did I tell you incidentally to go and see Finian’s Rainbow? It’s something I think you’d enjoy very much, in spite of Fred Astaire!) [ I seem to remember my mother was never very impressed with Astaire; she didn’t think much of men dancing in movies, for some reason.]

I got paid today for both the work I did for Wilfred Josephs, and the stuff I did for David Syrus last week. I charged the Josephs £3-5 for the seven hours work I did on two nights last week ˗ it was the most boring job I’ve ever done, and I felt like charging them more! But he sent a nice wee note with the cheque thanking me and saying he was very pleased with the work, so, you never know, something else may yet come of it. They did mention some other work when I was there, but only mentioned it. They have one of the many three-storied (plus basement) semi-detacheds that are right on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Anyone who’s anyone lives in Hampstead ˗ they say! 

I did most of my work in a sort of spare front bedroom, full of junk they were trying to sell. It also looks as tho’ it was used for just relaxing in, as a sort of non-visitors’ lounge. I worked on a built-in dressing table, surrounded by old copies of Music and Musicians, etc, children’s toys, old sofas and chairs, 19th-century miscellania, posters advertising works of Wilfred Josephs ˗ particularly his Requiem; it seems to have [been] the high spot of his composing. His own music room is rather fabulous: it has a grand piano covered with stuff so that only the keyboard is visible ˗ hundreds of books (including Ellery Queen in some profusion) and tapes, hundreds of photos, signed and unsigned, music stands with copies of his works, and a marvellous air of comfortableness ˗ how he does any work in there I don’t know. He has what looks like an old scullery or kitchen done up as a little recording studio with tape machines and hi-fi, etc. He seems rather pleasant ˗ plump, and 45-ish, and his wife hides quite a good business head, I should think, behind an air of quiet control. They have two talkative “English” children. [I have no idea what the emphasis on ‘English’ is here.] (And an au pair, and three very friendly poodles!)

Mr Bamford, whom I’m slowly getting use to ˗ you let his bluster run off you like water on oil, and find that he never means to be rude ˗ is amazingly rude to his wife. They have phones [handwritten] connecting their basement workshop and their flat, five floors above (and the lift hasn’t worked for two months or more!) and one day he spoke to her terribly rudely and I expected to go up and find her in tears ˗ but she was smiling quite happily. Obviously she pays no more attention to him than I’m slowly learning to! Love Mike

P.S. Cheque and P.N.’s arrived on the 13th!! Glad to hear you’ve just been busy. I suspected that you and Mrs Ryan might team up. Hope it’s all working okay. Thanks. [I presume this my mother's sister, my aunt.]

Re FUDGE: Hazel, David, John etc have all taken to it. Please send either a recipe or some more!!


Wednesday, November 04, 2015

7.5.69 Busy week

7.5.69 [This aerogramme was handwritten, and has a number of words missing presumably due to the hastiness of the writing]

Dear Mum, I thought I’d better start this off while I have a minute, because I don’t seem to have much free time coming up this week. I’ve been very very busy for Bamford, for one thing, and I also had to do some work for another of the Reps at the Centre which took all Monday night up.

To recap a little: the previous Sunday night , David Gorringe and I went to the Palladium (!) because he had free tickets, and saw the filming of a Variety Show there for TV. (We were one [I think I meant ‘two’] of about 2000 in the audience!) It was rather interesting really because, though it wasn’t like being in a TV studio, a lot of the details were the same. (Have I told you, incidentally, that John and I went out and bought a table, for £2, a drawleaf one, and four Edwardian chairs for £4?? This was rather more than I wanted to pay for so little, but the chairs at least may be quite valuable, and are certainly solid!) [My eternally misplaced optimism about getting a real bargain at a secondhand shop.] (We also have a piano which we got for nothing, except the expense of getting it to the flat. It’s not in the best of conditions but when I get a moment I’ll have a look at it.) ( We also have a fourth occupant of the flat; I think I’ve already mentioned he was coming. He’s Jeff, anyway).

Last Tuesday, Mike and I went to the Wells’ production of The Magic Flute*. Golly, this is a fabulous opera. I really enjoy it each time. Some of the singing wasn’t as good as the [Covent] Garden [production], and some was better and some was awful. And though the production wasn’t quite as magical in spots as the Garden, we still had the Queen of the Night appearing out of nothingness (simple, but always effective ˗ she arrived on a forklift truck apparently!) and a much better ordeal by fire and water. At the Garden they mostly went thru a lot of lit streamers that were either coloured red (for the fire) or green (for the water), but in this production they went in a cylinder-shaped thing which was broken in two semi-circular pieces; when they went into it closed right around them, was lit up inside, and then for the fire went red in flame-like lighting ˗ the two silhouettes still seen inside. For the water, instead of flames the cylinder appeared to fill with green water, and when it covered the two characters, Tamino, who all [the time] was playing his flute, caused bubbles to arise from his breath under water. This was one of many delightful touches. Apart from the obvious Masonic symbols etc, the opera contains one of the most superb love stories in all operas. Tamino and Pamina, who fall in love before they’ve even seen each other, are wonderful examples of the power of love over everything (including Masonry!). There’s one scene for example where Pamina tries to get Tamino to tell her he loves her, but because he’s been told not to speak to anyone, he cannot say anything, and she finishes her speech with the heart-breaking ‘I wish I could die’ ˗ and then pours out her anguish in one of the [most] beautiful arias ever written. In spite of all sorts of distractions she remains faithful to Tamino and they go through fire and water together in the end, tho’ that doesn’t seem to have been in the original plan!

On Wednesday, I did some work for Bamford and was told of something that he wanted to know if I’d like to do at the weekend. This was to go to a composer’s home in Hampstead (Wilfred Josephs ˗ I think he did the music for the Great War TV series) and with an electric eraser, to rub out stave lines (they’re printed on the back of the music) for some modern work. They said (the composer and his wife) it would take a couple of hours to do the fifteen pages ˗ well it took  four hours to do five!! What a job ˗ I’m off to do some more tonight and will probably have to do it again tomorrow night. I charged them 10/- an hour, which they paid, but I felt it might have [been] too much, until the Bamfords said, it was the least I should have charged! [I’m not sure what I mean about the staves being printed on the back of the music; the whole job ˗ I can only remember being at the house ˗ sounds a bit odd, and would have been a doddle in the computer age.]


And I went to the Crowls again ˗ with a COLD (but I’ve been taking vitamin tablets and it seems to have gone), and [had] a pile of checking as well as this four hours work. What a weekend!! I’m not going to get finished here I can see ˗ I’ll write another one soon, love Mike.

*I note that one of the cast members of the Wells production of The Magic Flute was Donna-Faye Carr, who was at the London Opera Centre during at least part of my year there.