28.1.70 - Troubles at the Crowls', and looking at my future

28.1.70

Dear Mum, here’s the rest of what I was going to say in yesterday’s letter, which you will no doubt have received by this time, and equally no doubt can probably barely read. On Monday, I went back up to the Crowls’ to give Reg a hand throughout the day at the Mentally Handicapped Centre, to do stocktaking of the Christmas stuff they had left. We spent a fairly calm but hard-working day doing this, and he took me to lunch at a place across the road about 1.00. Did I say that Nina is finally moving today, in my last letter? I don’t think so, but anyway this is the end result it would seem of nine years of not-very-happiness in the Crowl household.

I got most of the following at the lunch we had, and honestly I really feel very sorry for Reg. He’s a marvellous person and fabulously generous, and to have had this sort of tension in his house for the last nine years is pretty hard. In fact, up until this latest episode which has resulted in Nina’s going, I had never thought he looked old, or behaved like an old man, and it’s only now that he’s started to look tired and weary and a bit fed up. [He was sixty-four at this time.]  He’s even said he’s feeling old which isn’t like him at all. 

As I’ve said to you before I’ve always found Nina charming, so that it seems incredible that she has been in that house for the last two months and Not Spoken to Reg once! The only time I’ve ever come up against anything other than charm was at Westgate that time, when if Reg and Margaret and I went out and were relaxed about the time a bit [as in getting back for the all-important tea], we were told off not by Mavis, but by Nina. And on one or two other occasions I’ve dared to argue about something with her the surface Nina has gone and a much less pleasant lady has appeared. Reg puts it down to her having been spoilt all her life because of her heart trouble ˗ it would seem there is probably no reason why she shouldn’t have ever worked, but she never has. And while she hasn’t ever lived off anyone in particular, she’s nearly always lived with one of her sisters since her mother died. She has a pension but obviously this isn’t enough.

And Reg is worried too about Margaret who must obviously be left on her own some day. He says that Mavis’s sister Phil would look after her for a start at least, but it seems both to him and me that she must get used to not necessarily living with her relations. Margaret in fact is apparently quite happy with the idea of staying somewhere else ˗ boarding with someone for example ˗ but it is the relations, and especially Mavis who won’t hear of it. This seems very short-sighted to me. I said for a start to Reg that at least she had plenty of relations, but he was just sourly amused: Mavis’s brother and wife, who would be the most able to look after her, have carefully never bothered to look after Nina for more than some months when their mother died, although, Reg says, he promised his mother that he would. So it seems as if there is no likelihood of their doing anything about Margaret, either. What a business, isn’t it? The Good Lord will no doubt keep an eye on her, but as with any problem, he likes us, I’m sure, not just to sit around waiting for him to make a move. [After I returned to New Zealand, Margaret got married, in fact, to Brian, who also had some degree of mental disability. He died later, and Margaret seems to have coped since then, keeping in touch with some relatives on Mavis’s  side.]

Which brings me to me again! I went to a play last night (Edward II, with Ian McKellan, the new up and coming boy, it would seem, and it was very good too, even though I must have missed about the first twenty minutes!) and on the way home as I was doing my usual ten minute walk from the tube ˗ I do most of my meditating there!! ˗ I fell again on the problem of where I am going and what I am ultimately to do with myself. And honestly I must have been getting so worked up about it lately, that I finally burst into tears (!) and snuffled my way along quite a considerable bit of the road. That cleared the air at least, and I’m sure I felt a conciliatory pat on my shoulder from my much neglected Guardian Angel (I wonder what his name is? Fred, do you think?)

And at Mass this morning (that’s one of the advantages of going to work at night, I can go to Mass on both Wednesday and Saturday) I said to the Good Lord again to give me a push in the right direction, because I don’t know if I can be bothered with much more of this rather futureless outlook, and the idea has arisen in my head that it might be worth carrying on and completely my ATCL [Associate of the Trinity College of London, in piano], and possibly LTCL [Licentiate], and looking into teaching, because the more I look at it the more it seems to be clear that I’m just not good enough to take up repetiteuring full-time. I could get there in each case, but I’m not quick-witted enough, I think, to know what I’m doing without having worked at it. Therein has always lain my problem, I believe.

So I’m writing to Trinity College to find out if my Practical bit of the ATCL is still valid and if it is, or even if it isn’t, I think at least having that aim in view might be more valuable than carrying on as at the moment, hoping one day I’ll know when I’m ready enough!

One of Mike’s friends, Mervyn, that I met again last night when we three and Kathy went for a drink on Mike’s Irish citizenry, said something about teaching ˗ he teaches foreign students more advanced English ˗ and that is probably where the notion has arisen. What sort of teacher would I make? That doesn’t matter yet ˗ but I’ll see how this Trinity College business works out. I begin to think that I must always have sort of aim in view otherwise I don’t bother. We’ll see what gives from here, anyway.  Love, Mike.

[A good deal of this was a real loss of confidence after being regarded as something of a failure at the Opera Centre by the staff. I was actually a good sight-reader, and capable of working hard musically. I suspect if I’d pushed myself I could have made a living in London, musically, doing a variety of jobs, and in time would have had enough contacts to keep the work coming in. C’est la vie.]

23.12.69 - clothes, Christmas shopping and Ben-Hur in 70mm

23.12.69

Dear Mum, just a note to let you know all your recent parcels and letters have arrived safely, and to let you know as well that I now realise why I am a less than thrifty person. I’ve obviously inherited it from you. Fancy sending so much money! Next time I hear from you the address will no doubt be The Poorhouse. I was sort of thinking in terms of maybe two or three quid with which, as I said, I could buy a book. With this lot I’ll be able to start a library! No, actually, as you say, I’ll get me some clothes. I was thinking of a suit, but I really think some sort of sports clothes would be better. A coat and pants anyway. I seem to have a fair few shirts, and other odds and ends. My present pair of pants are wearing very well, though naturally the pockets aren’t too happy.

Did I ever tell you I’d altered the crease on them? They used to drive me mad, because when the tailors had altered them originally the leg crease went towards the centre making me look as though I was bandy-legged! You can barely see the original crease now, and my own creasing is ‘permanent’ apparently.

The other blue trousers I brought with me just don’t fit anymore ˗ I lost so much pudding round the middle that they won’t stay up. Anyway, they are going very thin at the knees. Do you remember the pair I bought just before I came away? They were very trendy (!) and had flared leg-bottoms (?) They seem too long actually, so one of these days I’ll take them up an inch or two and they’ll look quite normal. I’ve also got thin enough for them to look ‘decent’ as well, though all your young men here wear hip-fitting trousers. (They’re a bit of a curse, really; you can’t get your hands into the pockets, let alone carry anything in them. It looks as though you’re malformed!)

My sports coat is lasting well, of course, but the right sleeve cuff has worn away entirely and is a bit of an embarrassment. I don’t quite know what to do to repair it. Any suggestions?

The fudge, by the way, arrived some time ago, did I say?, and has gone the way of all your superb fudge ˗ and not even all into my mouth either.

As usual I left all my Christmas shopping till the last ˗ and on Saturday went along Oxford St to see what I could see. (Nothing but the best for Crowl’s recipients.) But in spite of the most wide selection of stuff imaginable it was very difficult to decide what to get, and I finished up with nothing. However, yesterday (Monday) I set out again with firmer intentions and more idea ˗ I’d had no clue as to what I would get anyone on Saturday ˗ and wound up with a pair of cups for Reg and Mavis (glass cups with copper holders; I’d wanted something copper for them ˗ and they already have everything!), a modern type of brooch for Margaret, and an Indian scarf for Nina. I was originally going to get Margaret the scarf, and to get some serviette rings for R and M (they use them all the time) but my plans got changed as I went along. I got Mike a record, as I’m going to his place for dinner, and Kathy (Tither) I’m going to give a copy of Zorba the Greek that Marilyn sent me ˗ after I’d bought my own. Or does that seem mean? But I don’t see the point of it hanging around doing nothing.

The amount of jewellery that is around is incredible. Lots of it is very cheap (well, above a pound, but under three) and very individual and very attractive. The trendy people these days are wearing about three rings on each hand (!) and so the variety is enormous. And they do such interesting things to make jewellery. I saw one shop where they had butterfly wings (an incredibly vivid blue) encased in gold surrounds, and another shop where sea plants had been enamelled and coppered, etc. And the variety of colour of jewels, whatever they are, is dazzling. Of course if you’re well off, in London, and like lots of ‘trinkets’, you can have a fabulous time. I have a fabulous time, just shop-window-gazing.

In Burlington Arcade, for example, or in White’s (?) Galleries (an old cinema, I think, now filled with tiny one room shops) [I can't identify this place.]. The pendant I sent you (and which I hope arrived), is a goldstone ˗ from Indonesia, I think the girl said. It’s about as small as pendants come just now ˗ I’m presuming your taste hasn’t altered that much ˗ because the average one is three or four times as large, clustered around with trimmings, and even with little bells in some cases.

I actually quite enjoy Christmas shopping ˗ it isn’t only the wares that are varied; the people are an incredibly fascinating mixture, and just as interesting. And I like wrapping up things too ˗ though last year was a bit of a mess, and not the most pleasant Christmas I’ve ever spent.

Margaret’s brooch is the shape of a flat orange-quarter, with an enamel content, but with an abstract painting on it, somehow varnished in. Sounds a bit weird, but it’s rather attractive. I thought of lots of things I could get the Crowls, but they wouldn’t go with their house. I found an old typewriter ribbon case for the brooch and padded it out with tissue paper left over my cold! I must have picked up some of the Hannagan ingenuity after all.

Since I started this letter I’ve made 30/-; Pete Lyon rang me up the other day to get me to do some coaching, today. And I went to a trade showing of Ben-Hur (back, in 70mm) on Sunday (!) morning with Trevor Neilsen from work [he was the Australian manager I’d mentioned previously]; I found a lot of it quite moving, though I hadn’t remembered enjoying it much the first time. It’s still very much a Hollywood piece and a lot of it is a bit rubbishy. The 70mm process is often disconcerting: hills sloping off at the side of the film turn out not to be hills, and the sea bends! Ships coming at each other in one scene from the sides of the shot are coming uphill at each other!!

Love Mike, and Happy New Year!

17.11.68: Hijinks at the Opera Centre & the difficulties of flatting

There's been a bit of a gap in uploading further letters to this blog because I was sent a dozen old letters I'd written to a friend recently, and I've been typing those up.  They cover a wider period from a few years before I went to England to sometime into the early 70s. 

There are two letters here, since the second runs on from the first, and they were sent together.

17.11.68

Dear Mum, how’s things with you two? Before I go any further, and before I forget, Kevin is no longer engaged – as far as I know, his fiancée broke it off, with some reasons about not leaving her mother, etc.  I rather suspect it’s for the best, for a number of reasons, and he doesn’t seem too greatly concerned about it. 

Mrs Tither, [Mike’s mother in Dunedin] incidentally, is in hospital as I write this – don’t know how long she’ll be there, but she had some rather unpleasant operation, and I’m sure Mike would be very pleased if you could see her some time – even after she comes out, perhaps.  She’s in Batchelor Ward at the mo’.  Do you know where they live in Mornington?  It’s that street (steep) beside the Post Office. [Brunel St.]  I said I’d mention it to you, to Mike, and he seemed a bit happier about it.

Another bit of news.  At the Opera Centre, as I think I’ve told you, we’re doing, for our end of term productions: Albert Herring, with a second year cast, and as a double bill, Dido and Aeneas, which Alistair and Henry are to play the harpsichord continuo in, and Angelique, which has piano part in the orchestra.  Because the other two were to do the harpsichord part, I rather suspected that I might be doing the piano part but since nothing had been said, I took it I wasn’t.  However, as I was leaving one night, James Robertson comes up to me and says, Michael, I want you to do the piano part in Angelique, so that was that.  I’ve now seen the part, and it has some very nasty spots in it, but I think I’ll manage to play it.  Angelique is one of the worst vocal scores any of us has seen – it’s been reduced for a pianist with three hands and six fingers on each of those!  I’m not alone in thinking this, which is something.  However so that is that, and I’m quite happy to be doing something in the show.  The two reps on Albert Herring won’t be doing anything at all apparently.  Gosh, how time flies – a week seems to go by in no time, and there seems in fact no time to do all the work necessary.  Oh, well.  

We’ve had Michael Moores at our repetiteur sessions for the last fortnight – we have 2 a week, and he’s the most down to earth of the four men we’ve had. [I don’t remember Moores, but he had a distinguished career – see below*]. Robertson was first of course and if one ignores his slightly overbearing and trying to be one of the young crowd manner, he’s not a bad old soul.  But few – in fact, I don’t think any of the students really like him, and he’s inclined to come into a session where someone else is working and brusquely interrupt, and embarrass everyone. The second rep-man was Myer Fredman, who had been working in Canada and also at Glyndebourne over the last couple of years, and who has also done a good deal of film music arranging – not composing.  (So has Michael Moores.)  They both seem to take something not necessarily very inspired and by dint of arrangement and orchestration turn it into something worthwhile.  Fredman was on Lawrence of Arabia, and Exodus (and reckoned the composer was hopeless, with no idea of orchestration!) As a teacher he wasn’t bad, although we spent many hours discussing the characters and the way they behaved, and the way they’re generally presented, which is a different thing! 

Peter Gellhorn

The next fellow was Peter Gellhorn – a German living in England, doing occasional conducting, and mainly in charge of the BBC Chorus, I think. He was fantastic in that if he wished to compare something in Fidelio (which we were doing) with something else that someone else had written, or Beethoven if it comes to that – he’d just sit down and play it, not really by memory, nor even by ear – he seemed to have it all in his head as a matter of course.  Fredman, who was one of his pupils (Moores worked under Robertson once too!) had told us that Gellhorn had been brought up in the old school of music where unless you could play a piece of music while reading the newspaper there was something wrong with you – and you were also expected to be able to transpose it as well (the music, not the newspaper!).  Moores, who did Boheme with us, was a nice casual musician, with a genuine love of music – all music.  And he was fascinated by the sort of background detail to the opera.  From the start he brought along the book that Boheme is based on, and read bits of it, and on the last day we did no music, but merely listened to him discussing the letters, and collaborations that went on between Puccini and his librettists, and how the story had changed by the time had passed form book to straight play version and ultimately to opera.  Very interesting, and very easy to talk to. 

On Friday in place of our usual lecture, we had an Audition Forum, which meant that half a dozen singers had to pretend they were auditioning – in front of the rest of the school.  The trouble was, as far as the reps were concerned, we had to play the stuff they sang from sight, and the five of us arrived with sort of shaky looks.  As it turned out I got a piece that nobody knew, so in actual fact it didn’t matter that I botched up a bit of it.  But it was all rather nervewracking all the same.  The last two singers were Alan Opie, and Jane Plant.  Alan, of course, is one of the best singers in the place, and when he came on looking all dishevelled, and puffing and panting, and then made a horrible botch of his song, we were convinced there was something wrong.  Actually at the start it appears he was to be sending it up so that we could really criticise, but John Kentish, the sort of student manager, [Director of Studies, in fact] sounded too gruff to be joking and some of us were a bit puzzled. Anyway he was supposed to be clowning so that we could (the singers rather) see what not to do at an audition.  Jane came on next, and she’s always appeared to me to be someone who’s not particularly interested.  She’s second year. But she gave an Academy Award-winning comedy performance as the sort of housewife with her eye on the bright lights type.  She wore a flowing black and white coat, had two or three bags, had a silver type of frontal-tiara on her head, had jangling bracelets on her arms, and was in flat shoes.  First she took off her coat with a great flourish while John Kentish quite seriously announced that she had offered to do either the First Act of Tristan and Isolde! or some other piece I didn’t know.  She did the latter, starting by going over to the piano and requesting in a stage whisper that Anthony play her a C when the time required it.

Part II

Then she sort of composed herself in front of the piano, then just as he was about to start, stopped him, and pouncing on her bag, set about finding her high heels.  After producing a couple of egg boxes and other sundries, she took her shoes off and flung them under the piano, and then put on the others.  Oh yes, somewhere along the line she set about powdering her nose, too.  She started the song eventually, and sang it all to John Kentish, who was sitting to one side in the front.  Then every now and then, she’d remember the audience, and sing to us all.  At one marvellous moment in the music, she sang four heavily accented notes, and accompanied each with a shake of her arms, causing all the bells to ring.  Mad, and, mad.  Still it took away the sour taste of the rest of the programme. 

Michael took us to a preview film showing at one of the little theatres (holding about 60) in Wardour St, on Thursday, and though it was directed by the same man [Norman Jewison] that made In the Heat of the Night, and though it was very well made, its content was such that I wouldst advise anyone to see it.  [I assume this was The Thomas Crown Affair.]  (Sorry the typing is so appalling tonight – though I’ve got a fire on here, it’s just a bit chilly and my fingers aren’t quite with it).  After this we went up to his flat and had tea: Kevin was there and also Pam, the ex-flatmate of a girl Kevin used to know over here. 

On Friday night, Hazel, from the school, and I went to see the Hitchcock, Strangers on a Train at the NFT.  The last quarter of an hour is still marvellous but it seemed a little less interesting than previously.  After this we went into the Festival Hall Coffee Bar next door  and talked so long that the people who had been going into the beginning of a concert when we arrived were leaving when we did!  We just talked about the various people at the Centre – not so much in a malicious way or anything, as just sort of discussing them – and it’s quite an interesting topic!  We also talked about ourselves, too, in the process.

Last night Mike was going to shout me to Canterbury Tales as sort of a repayment for the Operas he’s seen free with me.  And Kathy was supposed to come too, but since she has her brother’s bad habits, she was so late arriving at the restaurant where he was to meet her that he couldn’t get seats, so we went to see a revival of Ring Round the Moon, by the same company that had revived The Importance.  John Standing was in it, again, playing two identical brothers, and Flora Robson, Isabel Jeans, and Bill Fraser (of Bootsie and Snudge on TV some years ago) were also there.  It’s all a mad romantic comedy, which just about describes it, and of course there’s a lot of fun with the fact of one actor trying to be in two places at once.  On one occasion, Hugo points out that his brother is coming, goes and hides behind a bush – his brother walks in (must have been a double) at the back – passes the bush, and Frederick walks out, while we can still see feet of his ‘brother’ behind the bushes.  Then they reversed this process later.  Very clever.  There’s a marvellous line at the end.  Everyone is on stage except Hugo, and they all look off to see Hugo come in.  Someone says, Oh, he won’t come in, and Frederick, who is already on stage, says, practically to the audience, I knew he wouldn’t.  [In spite of my enthusiasm for this show here, I don’t remember it at all. I never went to see Canterbury Tales; it was described as very bawdy, and wasn’t to my taste at all.]

Thanks for keeping me posted on all the relatives and things; it doesn’t, to me, lose any interest by being further away than usual.  And thanks for the Peanuts – I find they remain readable, long after you’ve first seen the joke.  And for the Tablets – I sort of pick them up when I have only a few minutes to fill in, and they’re very interesting.  I see Father Gaffey saying that having a sense of humour should be one of the virtues!

Kingsley is at present away playing the organ for a church in the next parish – they’re going to pay him too. I don’t really know that it’s worthwhile being tied down to a job of any sort – I told you he was working three hours or less a night, didn’t I? – because so many things of worth come up, all the time, and they’re bound to come on the night that you’re working, I think I’m not really worried about my finances although I’m still being pretty careful, but I’m sure the good Lord has a special accounting-minded angel looking after it all.  Kingsley is a bit of a [...], really; at the weekend, I don’t get a chance to say what I’d like to eat for our main meal – he just goes ahead and cooks it, and though I’m grateful to have someone doing the work (I don’t even bother to help since he’s obviously much happier doing it on his own) it would be nice to be able to say, well, let’s experiment a bit this weekend, and have such and such – which possibly in the long run would cost us less.  We have sort of ‘good wholesome meals’, and once again I’m grateful, but though some of my experiments were a bit weird, they were always edible, and made quite a change.  He’s not a very imaginative lad I don’t think, and obviously feels he should stick to what he knows.  He even refuses to have a drop of curry in his spaghetti, now.  and he has stocked up the cupboards with tins of spaghetti and baked beans, because they’re cheap, and large large tins of coffee and marmalade, which consequently wreck my budget, which is organised to a certain point.  The tins of food are fine, of course, for snacks (ie evening meals) at night, but one gets very tired of the same thing each night.  And today we had dehydrated peas with our meal, which were absolutely awful, and yet they’re cheap.  I don’t know.  He has got much more talent for getting things cheaper than me, although again, I didn’t think I was doing that badly before, and yet he doesn’t really see further than his nose about the subject.  I haven’t caused an upset about it, but I have sort of quietly mentioned in passing that he wouldn’t have the same thing every night at home, etc.  I don’t know [handwritten] the trouble is he has so much more time to do the shopping than I have  - and perhaps I shouldn’t complain about it because he is sort of constantly getting a cup of coffee or supper or the aforementioned big meals.  Guess, a bit of time will sort it all out.  Perhaps I’ll be able to clear the air without a blow-up.  I’ve finished the chocolate chippies and fudge – shall I send back the tin FOR A REFILL? – only joking.  Lots of love.

PS He even puts my hottie [hot water bottle] in my bed for me – I’m more pampered than when I was at home!!  AAAGH – perhaps it’s good training in tolerance.  [We don’t know what Kingsley thought about me, of course! And I guess some of this is just typical adjustment to living with a different person and his different approach to domesticity. Sorry, Kingsley! I was no doubt also a bit of a pain to live with...]

*After a distinguished career in England, for Sadler’s Wells Opera, the British Broadcasting Corporation, films and records – a career which has taken him to many other countries, including Turkey and Japan, Michael Moores was invited, in 1976, to become Director of the Opera Workshop for the California State University at Los Angeles.  Mr Moores also makes regular visits to New Zealand, where he presents, conducts and performs piano solos with the New Zealand Symphony in his own television series.  Michael Moores came to Houston in 1979, where he is currently Associate Professor on the faculty of the University of Houston School of Music.  In addition he has conducted for Houston Grand Opera and the Houston Symphony Orchestra and will conduct in the Pop Series this season. 

10.10.68: Concerts and Operas

10.10.68

Dear Mum (the 10^th), got another one of your big letters yesterday, and an a/gram the day before, and along with the latter, a letter (!) from C[harles]. Spain, telling me that they’d taken up a collection for me at the A.G.M. of the [Dunedin] Opera Co and that they've credited me with £8-8-7, which seems an awful lot now!  I can’t make out though whether they've forwarded the cash to my BNZ a/c here or at home.  Since he says it’s sterling, I thought perhaps he’s managed to send it to the UK, and I’ll check sometime with the Bank and see.  If he has that would be great.

How’s Auntie Annie?  [One of my great aunts in Dunedin.] I was rather distressed to hear that she’s now on a downhill path – however happy she may be, I’ve hated to see the aunts sort of one-by-one vanishing.  And Tess would be so lonely, too.  [Tess and Anne had lived together as spinster sisters for all their lives, after fiancés were killed in the Great War.]

Re Confession, I’m going tomorrow – and I hadn’t forgotten...!  It’s taken rather a while to find out even when they have it.  I’m going out to the Crowls again on the weekend.  I feel a bit guilty – up to a certain point – because I rang them the day after they got back, and though Reg was going to write and invite me again that day, I hope they didn’t think I was hinting, or anything.  But truth to tell I’ve got very attached to them (apart from the fact that they’re so generous and I really felt like talking to them again.

Michael came back too last weekend, and called at the flat (may as well call it that) with Kate while I was out, on Saturday. However he left a note to ring him, and he and I went out, after our various occupations, on Monday night, and saw a new version (and a not over wonderful one) of The Beggars Opera. Apart from a darn good comedienne and some interesting, and very modern orchestration – curious combination of piano-celesta-harpsichord with a load of percussion, a bass fiddle, a clarinet, a horn and bassoon!  Mike got a year at the Immigration – so he’ll be here at least that much longer! 

I should have written to Kingsley before he left and made some more definite arrangements about meeting him, but it wasn’t until mail started arriving here for him that I realised he was nearly coming.  Actually the mail must have been sent before he left, which seems a bit curious, but....!  Anyway, I’ll definitely leave some message at the OVC when he does arrive – I can’t even tell him now how to get to London from the airport and thence to the OVC, but he’s got more self-assurance than I, so he’ll find it, no doubt. 

SISTER ST ANNE!!! Isn’t that fantastic – it’s rather strangely like a lot of other odds and ends in the coincidence line that have cropped up since I arrived, and which seem to make me feel as tho I’ve done the right thing. [No idea what the coincidence was, but Sister St Anne had been my first music teacher, and I just loved her. She was still teaching music up until a few years ago, and had hardly changed a jot.]  EG, the first concert I attended included the Mozart Piano Concerto we worked on in the first Music School [in Dunedin], and the Bach P.C. [?] of the next year turned up on the radio one morning, then there’s been the number of NZers I met in the first week, the fact that Albert Herring figures so prominently in the programme for the Centre, etc. [I had been one of the two repetiteurs for the NZ Opera Co’s production of Albert Herring a year or so before this.]  Actually, over the last couple of days, I’ve had one of my depressive bits again – caused once again partly by a comment somebody made on the immoral state of a party that had been held – how he was supposed to have known when he didn’t attend it I don’t know, and so I’ll take that with a grain of salt, and the other thing was that whereas I thought I was going quite well in my playing of The Telephone, over the last day or so it seems to have fallen apart, and though the Senior Coach, Sheila Thomas, has been quite sympathetic to me and keeps saying how hard it is, etc, I feel I should be able to do better with it, particularly as the other two works in the programme are harder to play.  And just when I think I’m sort of playing not too badly, one of the singers or stage managers will turn around and play almost as well as I ever do! I wonder then whether I’m even remotely near to being of the right standard required.  It’s funny because earlier on this week, I’d been quite happy about it all.  However, I must persevere for the reasons mentioned in previous letters at least for a year, and perhaps by that time I’ll really know whether it’s worth while going on or whether I should go home and a ditch-digger.  I sometimes feel quite a lack of musical education and that I’ve a tremendous long way to go to catch up, but it seems as though most of the NZeders are in the same boat.  I’ll have to somehow combat this negative approach I think and plow ahead as though it didn’t matter.  Lots of prayers I think. 

I must certainly write to Sister SA and I’m sure I can manage to do it without cutting you out!  It seems ages since I wrote to you anyway.  ?. 

Went to The Bartered Bride at the NFT on Sat evening – a 1932 film vaguely based on the opera, but with a much better working of the plot and only occasional use of the actual music but very energetic and taken at a frantic pace.  The only bug-bear was the necessity of ear-phones for a translation (it was in German – bits of which I understood!), but one had to remove them to hear the music, which of course they didn’t translate!?!  On Sunday, though I had been going to go to another film, I changed my mind at the last minute, on looking in my wallet, and went for a walk on the Victoria and Albert docks instead.  They were absolutely deserted, and vast.  But it wasn’t really greatly interesting, and so I just wandered around a bit – and think I discovered the location that they used at one stage of the film Bedazzled there.  On Tuesday, by sheer luck, Mike and I were able to go to a Festival Hall concert – best seats at cheapest prices again – when we thought we wouldn't be able to, and we saw the best concert I’ve ever attended.  First Leonora No 2 by Beethoven (one of his four overtures ! to Fidelio – he was unsatisfied with 3) and then Barry Tuckwell, the big man in the horn-playing line, played a Mozart Concerto – with a distinctly funny last movement.  This man plays the horn in the manner of one of those old film actors who are so obviously being dubbed because they don’t move a muscle emotionally or physically, apart from actually sort of moving around the instrument, whatever it is.  And yet the sound and music he makes is fabulous.  And lastly [handwritten] aaagh, I’m not going to get it all in after all – I’ll start another letter.  Luv Mike.

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What I was going to say at the end of the last letter was that lastly they played Mahler’s First Symphony, with a rather augmented orchestra: five trumpets and that sort of thing.  It was conducted by Jascha Horenstein, who although he isn’t that well known in London has quite a reputation as a Mahler man – he must be about 70, [he was indeed seventy, and died only five years later] and yet to conduct with the energy he uses would take a 17-year-old all his time.  You recall the Mahler 4^th I’ve got at home and which we both liked?  It has the lady singing in the last movement and she and the flute sort of get carried away as though the record was being speeded up?  Well, the first is so obviously the same composer at work that parts of the two sound identical.  It hasn’t the long slow movement of the fourth symphony, but has instead a minor-key version of Frere Jacque! (plus another counter-tune eventually running along the top).  The whole symphony is based on the interval of a fourth – if you sing F.J. to yourself you’ll strike a fourth when you go Ding dong ding.  Of course apart from the fourth, there is a lot of surrounding material, but all his thematic material, on which each movement is based derives from this fourth interval.  Remember on the way to ChCh I was telling you about the B. Britten War Requiem, and how it is all based on the interval of a second?  Well, the idea is the same.  And it is fantastically well orchestrated.  I was trying to do what we’d been told that day in our reps class – to approach all older music as though it was new, and to try and feel how people must have when a thing was considered revolutionary.  (Vice-versa, new music needs to [be] approached as though we were already familiar with it!)   Going on this basis, the music is really fabulous – though one can see why Mahler has so long been neglected.  The last movement of the symphony, which by comparison with the other three is a wild fury, was so exciting that the audience went mad at the end and clapped for positively ages. We even stood up in the end and clapped, and people were shouting bravo – especially Alistair Dawes (see previous ref.) who had sat through the whole work as though any minute he might get up and conduct with Horenstein. and who is mad on Mahler – after that performance, anyone would be I think.  I’ve never felt so terrifically excited by anything musical before, and it really was a unique experience.  [It’s hard to imagine now that at this point, Mahler’s music had hardly been heard for the previous thirty or so years.]

The next night we were allowed into an Aida  general rehearsal, which was fabulous as far as the leads went – the Aida was so beautifully sung, and the tenor was rather glorious too.  The girl who played Amneris, who is sort of the villainess of the piece, had tremendous stage presence, for an opera singer, but hadn’t half the voice of the principals.  The sets were fantastic.  The opening scene is all gold and black, and the costuming likewise – the next scene is the inside [of] Amneris’ tent, which transformed into the huge courtyard where all the spectacle bit comes in, and then we had a scene at night near the Nile, with it all sort of gorgeously blue, and the costuming again fitting in, and then finally the interior of the prison, first just two doors with a set of lamps between, and then this goes and we see the tomb on stage level and a great slab is lowered on chains, and people move about on this upper area, which has steps leading off etc. Unfortunately, until the 3^rd Act, by far the best musically and dramatically, none of us Opera Centre people could take it very seriously (most of the students were there) because in the second part of the first scene the wall at the back opened out and a dozen or so ballerinas, appropriately dressed, came out and did the most untidy ballet I’ve ever seen, and then in the next scene in the tent, there was a male ballet, which was equally sloppy, and then in the next scene, after one had got over the rather hysterical process of the same dozen men coming on again and again with different banners  - going out one side and coming in the other again – and they were always out of step! – there was another ballet in which not only did they not seem to know what they were supposed to be doing quite, but the lead ballerina was almost dropped into the pit by her three men supports.  She went head over heels between the 3, and after we’d got over the initial shock of seeing her slip into their arms upside down, it was impossible not to laugh at the sight of this very neat lady with her legs sticking upwards at two quite ridiculous angles!  In the tent scene there had been a male lead dancer and he’d done some acrobatic things over his supporters and almost fallen head first to the floor off one of their shoulders!  In the third act, the lighting, which was the aforementioned blue, suddenly went pitch-dark, then all the working lights came up and revealed the set as it really was, and this happened two or 3 times during the act.  The conductor had to stop several times because of the chorus who didn’t seem to know some parts of it, and one poor small-part man was constantly in the wrong place!  Apparently he’d played another part in the same production and there was always some production assistant coming up and telling him he was wrong!  What a night.  But the singing was good. 

Here are some more students:- Hazel Sharples, a Negress with an irresistible laugh, and who is very friendly, and who like many of the students isn’t a Londoner – lots of them feel about it the way I do. That it is marvellous to be there.  She’s a SM. [She was actually from Guyana – I had no idea where that was at that time – and a year later we were seriously considering getting married. She went on to have a successful career as a stage manager, and died suddenly in 1995. A book prize for stage management students at Guildhall is named after her.]  Tony Something, a baritone, a Welshman, who spends more time laughing at himself and life in general than anyone I’ve ever met.  Formerly a teacher, and one of those people you can insult on very short acquaintance.  Moyra [Moira] Paterson, one of several Scots, who with Joyce McCrindle, another, has spent all this time looking for a different flat.  They’re right at the other end of one of the tube lines I’m on.  I’ve got to some work with Joyce on Sat morning near Baker St, somewhere. Tessa Cahill, a slightly plump, but very attractive and very efficient sop.  Loreen [Laureen] Livingstone, a diminutive Scots soprano, with very dark hair, and a very quiet way. Oh, dear, look where I am again. [handwritten] There’s just never enough room on these things.  Not to worry.  Luv Mike.