25.4.69 Flatting and fudge

25.4.69

Dear Mum, sorry it’s so long since you had a letter, tho' at least last time I did write rather more than a few lines! Just been re-reading your letter about the newly-weds. (What’s the married name?) [I have no idea which newly-weds these would have been; presumably a cousin of mine marrying someone. Nor do I know who it was that ‘descended’ on my mother.] I am sorry to hear that you’ve once again been descended upon by one of my obviously bludging generation ˗ sorry, two ˗ and it always seems to happen to your holiday, too. The only thing I can hope about, and the fact that Mary comes and goes so often, is that it lessens any loneliness you may be experiencing. [I think the 'Mary' referred to here was probably also a cousin.] Though why you should I can’t imagine ˗ I’ve had all this place to myself since Easter (!) and now find that since Julie has come back that I quite got to like having the place to myself. Purely selfish, I am, and yet I like having other people around too. I know, tho’, even tho’ you say that it spoilt your holiday, that you do enjoy cooking for other people ˗ and that it’s probably good that they’re there because means that you’re definitely eating properly. I’m only sorry to hear that it doesn’t sound as tho’ they paid you very much towards it. We are a selfish generation I know, and yet I always seem to wind up being sympathetic towards my fellow youngsters. We’re very spoilt, that’s the trouble. 

The cover of Talbot's 1986
recording, The Golden Tenor. 

You’ll be interested to know that I’ve just shown around the place (the flat) a new occupant ˗ making four of us here, and bringing the rent per person down by over a pound. Not that it seemed to be making much difference to me at the price it was, but it seems silly to have so much room and to be spending money unnecessarily. It’s a Welsh (!) tenor (!) of 24, who is going to be at the Centre for the coming term, and who happened to mention that he needed a place to stay, just as I was thinking that a fourth person would come in handy. I had talked to John about it and one night this week when he was here, we shifted the beds around in our room, just to see how much space there was, and really, you could hold a dance in there now! What also sparked off the idea was that Mike had said they had a divan in the cellar of their flats, and that it would only get damp down there. So it’s arriving tomorrow, and Jeffrey (Talbot) arrives on Monday. To me he seems a nice guy, coming from a similar family situation as me, and tho’ he’s a typical tenor, he’s also down-to-earth as well. I think it’ll work out all right, since none of us is ever here that much anyway!

John and I are going out tomorrow to see if we can’t get some cheap furniture (2nd-hand) as the flat, tho’ furnished, has large bare patches, and the living room looks more like an Ideal Home exhibition stand than a living room. We’ve decided how much we can spend and with a bit of luck, may pick up something worthwhile. Or several somethings.

I’ve been sticking up, with double-sided sellotape, cut-out pictures from magazines, and tho’ that sounds revolting, it’s much better than bare white walls. Actually, apart from the fact that they’re a little crooked ˗ some are ˗ they don’t look bad. But I stuck one lot up so crookedly, I had to stick the others up around it crookedly to compensate! (I can hear you screaming from here.)

Have I told you what I thought I might do at the end of term? Don’t recall doing so, but the last letter was too long to remember all I said. I’m thinking of say getting a part time job ˗ preferably musical of course ˗ there was a job as a Music Librarian in this week’s Stage (the trade paper) which would have suited nicely if I hadn’t been studying. It was part time. And with this I’d like to spend about 6 months at least catching up on repertoire ˗ I don’t feel satisfied with what I know at present ˗ and do whatever coaching comes my way, with anything else in that line. Actually, on Wednesday, I again went to ElthamAdult Education and am getting £5- 12 for coaching amateurs for about two hours! The boss-man said that there was a possibility of more work there ˗ and if it could be relatively constant, that would be very nice. The normal rep is away, at Glyndebourne, and that will be for a while. (Spring must be here ˗ it’s eight o’clock and still light ˗ and fairly mild.)

I got your latest parcel a couple of days ago, with the biscuits and cheese and meat and fudge. Dear mother ˗ you put the fudge in a box in a plastic bag, remember? Well, guess what happened? The fudge returned to its natural state, and was a lovely solid squelchy block! It was terribly funny. I left it out in the air (no, not right outside!) for a day or so (including in the sunlight from the window, which didn’t help) and it’s starting to harden up again. I’ve had one or two irresistable pieces, and I think it’s coming right. Hazel has demanded that I take some to her ˗ she’s had NZ fudge before apparently! (Funny, the Canadians and Americans and Hazel all go for the same kind of things as the NZs: milkshakes, hot-dogs...fudge! The English don’t know how to make these things, tho’ they pretend. Oh yes, hamburgers too.)

We’ve already had a very busy first week ˗ we’ve had one of the Ring Cycle ˗ Wagner ˗ in our first Reps’ class, which hasn’t been as bad as it might have been, and we have Rosenkavalier coming up in May. Man, that’ll be hard work! I’m still one of the two Reps with nothing special to do (Alistair and David are doing work outside) and so I’ve got lots to do. Might as well be busy!

Lots of love, Mike.

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.

Next aerogram...

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.

3.10.68 - Students and subsidies

Letter not dated but postmarked 3^rd Oct, 1968

Dear mother, you silly old thing, just because your little poem upset me a little once doesn’t mean to say that you should give up what is obviously a new career opening before you!  The first time I read it, it had an amusing effect – I just read it again, on the wrong day.  But while we’re on the subject, so to speak, of upsetting things, I’d better say that for this Course to be worthwhile in the long run, I’ll have to stay in the UK after it’s over.  Not that I wouldn't come home tomorrow, if I could bring London with me!  But, presuming that I come out of it all with the degree of success expected, I can see obviously that it would be a waste to go straight home again – not that they wouldn't like me anymore, or find something to do with me, but there’s that much more room for expansion, here, and since I seem to be cut out for something in this line, it’s no use constantly chopping and changing for the rest of my life.  I know you will understand, and I know too that the amount you miss me, is equal at least to the amount I miss you and everybody else at home.  But it seems the Good Lord intended things to go this way – you never know he might change the whole look of things tomorrow, and I may find that things are different entirely. Anyway, that’s the position as it stands.  To think that I might never see Dunedin again doesn’t bear thinking about, as you realise, I know, but when I hear, just for example, that to put a student through at the LOC costs somebody £1500! it’s only fair I should do my best to come out at the other end at least with the look of what I went in there for!  And even if there wasn’t a mysterious somebody paying that amount there are two unmysterious bods – you and me – paying considerably more, by contrast, towards my future, and I don’t think I should let us down.  It’s all very serious isn’t it, and I started out on this letter in a happy frame of mind, so as long as we can content ourselves with being as close as mum and son can across a few thousand miles, I dare say we’ll pull through.  I hope that hasn't upset you; don’t wish to make you miserable when I send you a letter.  [Until I re-read this letter I'd forgotten that someone must have subsidised me to go to the LOC. I don’t think I ever knew who it was: perhaps it was Prof Peter Platt, from the Music Department at the University of Otago who had spoken on my behalf to the LOC and who encouraged me to go; perhaps it was Bertha Rawlinson, the Dunedin singer.  Perhaps it was a group of people associated with the Dunedin Opera Company. I don't think I've ever known.]

Let’s change the subject. I sent a card to Marg. But it won’t arrive until after the date. It’s just a postcard – they’re 10d to post but at least it shows we’re thinking of her; after all I used to get on very well with her, didn’t I?  [Regrettably, I'm not sure who this ‘Marg’ was – I suspect she was more my mother's friend than mine.]

Finally wrote to Kevin R[owlands] since that seemed safer than trying to contact him at the theatre, and asked him if he’d let me know what was the best way of getting in touch with him.  [I was obviously feeling obliged to contact this man because our neighbours had been keen that I should do so, and you can read that in the lines.]

I still don’t feel that I am in London – I’ve just never got that feeling I expected of being in such a place.  I think for one thing it’s because the places seen in photos so often are quite different in reality.  Trafalgar Square looks impressive in a verydifferent way here to the way the photos make it look and so does Piccadilly Circus. Silly, isn’t it? Big Ben gets me though – it is remarkably beautiful – there’s something quite golden about the look of it, which is something that I’d never seen in photos.  And crossing over the Thames anywhere is something that I find enchanting. London skies always seem to be a sort of lovely grey, and the buildings go so well with this, and the river, that that’s my favourite part of the city, I think. 

Do send the Tablets, if it’s not too expensive – I haven’t had any yet, so they’re a treat in store.  [Again, I think this was note that I felt obliged to put in; I can’t remember ever feeling that strongly about the magazine.]

The school goes on as busily as last week, and when I’ve done a day there, I really feel as though I’ve been working. It’s the sheer concentration, I think. And my bottom is getting calluses on it from sitting on hard chairs so much!! 

We saw the dress rehearsal of An Italian Girl in Algiers last night, done by the LOC Opera for All Group.  (There are Welsh and Scots ones too.)  And it was a delight, after a slightly shaky start.  Rossini really was a comic master.  There is one ensemble – the story is too incredible for words of course – where seven mixed characters sing – everyone something different, on top of a simple um chah accompaniment.  And it’s so so funny – just because each time you think it’s going to go off in another direction it starts all over again.  The ensemble singing of the cast was excellent. 

While I have a bit of space let me tell you about some of the students, so that you’ll have something to refer to if necessary. John Opie! [he was actually Alan Opie, as I wrote in an earlier letter – the exclamation mark is because I’d worked with a Ramon Opie in the NZ Opera Quartet] from Cornwall, who is a baritone, and takes off my NZ accent – when I’m not taking off an East End one – there’s such a variety of accents at the school that we spend half the time taking each other off, and when it comes to a language class!  John has a good sense of humour – lacking in some of the more London type singers (and others).  David Cyrus [actually Syrus, who became my best friend out of the student intake of that year], a rep, a sort of ungainly boy, and awkward to look at, and who makes me feel as though there is perhaps someone else around whom I’m on a par with.  [David was, and still is, somewhat awkward in mannerisms – it’s part of his charm.  He was forever apologising, so much so that when I berated him for it in a letter from NZ once, after I’d been back here for some years, he sent by return mail an aerogram with a single, tiny word stuck in the middle on the page – ‘Sorry’. David would go on to be Head of Music at Covent Garden, where he began work in 1971 and still remains.]

Alistair Dawes, a rep, and friend from youth of the above.  Smokes a pipe, has a shock of hair (or perhaps the hair itself has had the shock!), and, like four of the reps, has permanent specs, and is able to be amused. (So is D.C)  Anthony Negus, the most pro of the reps – he freelanced in coaching last year [I conveniently forget at this point that I’d already worked for at least two years as a professional repetiteur and accompanist], is mad on Wagner, on opera in general, and looks hurt if you criticise anything [related to opera, that is]. Very confident, and generally with good reason.  Henry Ward, seemingly the odd-rep-out, no glasses, full of fire, apparently, but with an extremely lackadaisical attitude to work, and an intense dislike of stuff that doesn’t please him.  A very friendly smile but rather unapproachable (he’ll probably go somewhere). [I can’t find anything on the Net about Henry; he left LOC in the first half of the year, I think, because he didn’t feel it was teaching him anything, and possibly went onto a conducting job with one of the Northern Opera Companies.]  A.N. also pipes – his is worse smelling, (though still not unpleasant) than A.D’s.  Keith Stoppard, baritone, married to the daughter of a top Engineer (at present head of the Plessey Co in Aussie), an ex-engineer himself, and, unfortunately no relation to Tom Stoppard who is at present one of London’s top dramatists.  [I seem to remember Keith had difficulties as a married student juggling everything in his life; he was possibly the only married student apart from Kiri. I can’t find anything on the Net to say what became of him. He was one of the friendlier – and more mature – singing students.] David Patmore, one of the S.Ms [stage management students], slight stutter (which makes his German tricky!) very friendly with the reps, and a very nice guy.  [He also became a good friend during this time.]  He and the other 4 reps are all ex-OXFORD!  What distinguished company.  [handwritten] Oxford can’t be so highbrow after all!  There are no girls here [in this list of names, rather than not at the Centre at all] because I can’t remember who they are from day to day – they change their hair styles.  [Yup, a pretty weak excuse – of course there were girls, and of course I already knew some of them.]  Love, Mike

28.9.68: Washing and Wagner

28.9.68

Dear Mum, got a lovely long letter from you – incidentally as far as I know I’ve had all your letters; and have meant to answer things in them, but there’s always so much to tell you that by the time I’ve finished I’ve also finished the aerogram.  This time I will give you some answers.  The floods were all a lot south of London as far as I know – I’ve hardly bought a paper since I’ve been here; for one thing there are so many to choose from, and it saves those few pence a day.  Re Kevin Rowlands: I’m a bit unsure how to get hold of him really – I rather doubt that I’d get to see him at the stage door of the theatre, the way things are here, and it’s a bit of a trip up to the West End, unless I’m going that way, and when I am, I’m always in such a darn hurry to get somewhere that I don’t have time to sidetrack.  I’ll see if I can get hold of a phone number at his home address tomorrow – Sunday – and if that doesn’t work, I’ll just have to try ringing the theatre. When you see how busy I’ve been since the course started, you’ll realise that I don’t even seem to have much time in the day to ring anyone. [You get the impression I wasn’t keen to follow up on Kevin Rowlands. I’d heard about this man for some years – he was the only son of our direct neighbours across the street at home – and he was his mother's pride and joy because he’d ‘made’ it in London. He was a dancer, but I’d never met him at this point.] I’ve meant to ring both Kathy Tither, who’s now back from Spain, and Max Jarman, this week, but haven’t had the time.  [Max had toured with me in La Bohėme, when the NZ Opera Company had produced a piano tour version of it that travelled around both the North and South Islands. He was a young baritone and played the landlord, and any other odd part that needed filling in. He obviously went on to have a reasonable career – see this ‘cuttings’ page and this bio]

Congratulate the H’s on Philip, I don’t think I’ve even mentioned the poor kid yet!  [My uncle and aunt, Terry and Monica, had obviously had their fifth and last child/]

Very amused about Fred and the Blackbird; I’m glad too that she’s such good company for you. It’s a bit like the radio here – they’re so informative about everything (the 3^rd [Radio 3] programme plays serious music most of the day, except for the odd play) and they explain all sorts of interesting points, and I quite feel as though it’s someone talking to me particularly all the time! 

Tell Kingsley sometime that the rent is £5 a week between us; but his fares may cost him another pound going to and from the Guildhall each week, and food is sometimes surprisingly expensive; meat, eg, is fantastic, and yet other things are so cheap that you wonder if they've charged you for everything! [Kingsley was to be my flatmate, and hadn’t arrived at this point. As I anticipated, when he did arrive, he found the cost and the travel from Plaistow too much and didn’t stay long.]  The meals at the Opera C. are filling enough and I only need to have a reasonably cheap snack when I get home.  [For the life of me I can’t visualise where the cafeteria was, or what it looked like, at the Opera Centre.] I imagine that they have a cafeteria at the Guildhall too. We have to put a 1/- in the slot for electricity here, which is sometimes annoying because it always seems to happen when I’m cooking, and shillings are very hard to get because everyone wants them for the same reason.  At the moment I have a fair supply, however, and Mr M. down-stairs says I only need to ask if I do run out as he keeps 10/- worth.  Mrs M occasionally makes my bed only because she happens to be trotting around with the sheets which she says she will always do – she got quite a surprise when I did the first one!  [I say first one, but my memory is of doing both sheets, in the bath, and having a great deal of trouble trying to wring them out. She realised what I was doing when I tried to find somewhere to hang them.] And she has offered to take our washing along to the laundrette with hers as things get wetter. At the moment the weather is still quite reasonable, though it has poured a few times.  I did my washing about 10.30 last night, and put it out and it was dry this morning. Nina suggested putting my underclothes between hot water bottles to dry them, and this has worked well so far, and I hang my shirts in the little sun-room sort of thing at the back of the house, where they seem to air quite well.  And tell K[ingsley] there is a tea-pot! 

To change the subject again, I haven’t had any Tablets yet, but presume they’re coming by a slower post. [This was the Catholic national magazine, produced in Dunedin. I eventually wrote book reviews for its successor, Tui Motu.]  At the mo there is a big controversy about the 5d and 4d new mail system, and it’s quite likely that if anything has still to come via the OVC it is still being sorted, because apparently things are a bit chaotic.  The 5d mail is stuff to be delivered the next day, and the 4d is stuff that isn’t urgent, and they say that they are taking the 4d mail right out of London to sort! 

I took a bunch of flowers to Mavis last week, only 2/6 but the thought is the main thing, and they won’t let me pay for teas when we have them, so! 

Now to continue the story. Up until about Wednesday, I was still feeling as though perhaps I’d done the wrong thing coming to the Centre, as I seemed to be putting my foot in it quite a lot and saying things during classes that seemed to take the instructors aback a little, but I think this was either my imagination or else I was still feeling my way rather a lot. However all sorts of people are very friendly, even though they don’t look as though they’re going to be, and I’m now really enjoying it, (although I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard continuously before – what with the housework, etc) and looking forward to it all.  On Tuesday we had a whole morning on Traviata; the 5 reps playing through a section which was then commented on by Mr Rob[bertson]. James Robertson had been a well-known opera conductor in the UK as well as working with the NZ Broadcasting Orchestra for a time before I met up with him.] and played by him to show what could be done, or should be done; and the other reps and stage managers (!) sang the parts. Very musical s.m’s, ha ha. [This wasn’t the favourite class of the stage management students, and I seem to recall, as time went on, that they appeared less and less at these sessions.] Mr R’s comment, rather quietly to me – I was the first pianist – was, ‘not exactly up to Royal Choral Society Standard yet, was it?’  I don’t know if this was sarky or not!  [It would have been. He wasn’t the friendliest of people, and we never quite seemed to hit it off. I think the Opera Centre was something of a backward step, career-wise, for him, and he was often frustrated with the students.] And later in the same lesson he asked if any of us were interested in conducting, and I said I wasn’t worried about it, as his Personal Assistant, June Megennis, had said there was more opportunity for coaches these days than conductors.  And once again I felt as though I’d said the wrong thing.  (When he brought the subject again up yesterday I didn’t feel so bad, so as you can see perhaps it was just me that first morning.) Anyway, none of the other reps seemed any better than me, or worse, so I ceased to worry about it. 

In the afternoon I was supposed to have two coaching sessions, one on my own, and the other sitting in on a session with a professional. rep.  The singer had gone home by mistake for the first session, so I did some work on my own, but the other one was very interesting.  We spent nearly an hour discussing whether or not appoggiaturas (which is sort of changing what’s written for the better) should be used in a piece of recit (the guff that goes on before an aria) and it was quite fascinating.  Then we had Italian, and unfortunately the teacher isn’t a patch on the German lady, so we’ll just have to do most of the work ourselves. The G. teacher works on the individuals, which can be terrifying, but also very satisfactory, but the I.T. just works on the class as a [handwritten] whole, and one doesn’t learn

continued in the next letter.

[handwritten] and thank you for the postal notes.[typed] things properly, particularly the pronunciation.  Never mind, no one is on their own, and the other students have talked about it with me, and it’s great to see one’s own ideas agreed upon.  This is what is marvellous about the place, of course, it has the music school atmosphere plus the serious approach to everything. [I had attended at least two Summer Music Schools in Dunedin before I did any touring in NZ – I think. They were held at John McGlashan College, and we slept in the dorms. At one of these I played the piano in a movement from a Mozart Concerto, and in another I conducted a one-act opera: Down in the Valley, by Kurt Weill. This was addition to doing lots of accompanying, and even having one of my own compositions performed by a small ensemble. There were plenty of serious people at these, but we also had an enormous amount of fun.]  Not entirely serious of course – one of the reps is a bit gloomy, and another seems a trifle aloof, but generally we’ve got a sense of humour, and the singers with a few exceptions are a pleasant enough crew.  Those that I’ve really met.  On Wed morning I had two singers, coaching, on my own, and then German again.  This was a very satisfactory morning.  In the afternoon we were divided up with the singers who will be attending a master-performance-class with Ella Gerber, who produced Porgy [and Bess] in NZ, I think, and who will produce, in ten days, the first act of The Consul, by Menotti, The Telephone, a one-acter by the same, and sections of an act of P & B.   She will sort of comment on American opera as she goes along which is the whole idea, and then the three things will be performed somewhere for the Friends of Covent Garden.  I rehearsed with two of the singers in The Telephone -  there are only 2 characters – and it has now transpired that I will be playing the performance of it (only piano perfs) with one of the other reps conducting.  [I had played for this opera back in Dunedin at an earlier point.] We sorted all this out yesterday afternoon when we went through the three setting tempi with the singers, Mr R and the two ladies who are sort of senior coaches. I think one is a Miss Nash. [I got on very well with Miss Nash – she was very much more approachable than Mr R!]  This is quite exciting really as it has to be up to performing standard in about three weeks time, and we also have to know enough about the other two works in each case to be able to play them at rehearsal if necessary.  And I’m not worried, so I must be enjoying myself!!  Mad....

On Thursday morning we went straight from our homes to Covent Garden and sat through the first act of a dress rehearsal of Götterdämmerung.  Typically Wagner, it starts off with three ladies (Norms) who stand on a pitch black stage, just spotlit on them, and sing for a quarter of an hour.  But it really was interesting, once it got past them.  This is the opera that we saw being recorded by Georg Solti on TV, remember? And on Thurs night the other two acts were performed – back to front – with only those from the OC who wanted to be there (in the morning the place was full of Friends of C G), and we sat in much better seats – went in through the stage door, in fact.  And the conductor was....Georg Solti.  Marvellous.  The last act, which we saw first at night, has the bit where Brünnhilde immolates herself, and anybody else who happens to be around, and burns Walhalla down.  And they do it all before your eyes.  First she throws a not very burning torch behind a pillar, and shortly flames (lights pouring up the scenery, but quite effective) flood across the stage, and then the lighting changes, as the scenery collapses! It did. And across the front of the stage is a gauze curtain which when lit a certain way represents an arc of the sky, somehow, it’s hard to describe, and then the lights behind the curtain come up again, and we see Walhalla  in the distance being burnt; it disappears, and we see a twinkling sky rather like the Milky Way, this goes, and we see on the stage itself, half of the rock that Brünnhilde lived on, now broken with all the back gone, and in the distance, the 3 Rhine Maidens gracefully waving, and this vanishes, and the ring that encircles Walhalla (it had appeared throughout the opera, as a platform, sort of, and also encircling those great massive pillars, the ones that collapsed, and turned out to be canvas!) appears lying flat on the stage, looking a bit shattered, and then this goes too, and all goes gloomy behind the gauze, and sort of fades away. I think I’ve got all that out of its sequence somehow, but never mind, it was a tremendous thing to see, on a stage. The backstage crew must have had their work cut out with that lot. 

 

Götterdämmerung is of course part of the Ring Cycle and all the way through this production the stage is graced with a Ring – Brünnhilde’s rock is a ring on a slant, and a scene in Walhalla is the ring on a different slant.  Rather precarious, really  - one young lady had to go shrieking out right from side to the other and down a flight of steps – it’s a wonder she didn’t break her neck. 

 

Between this I had two more coaching sessions and another Italian lessione. I was going to the opera with two of the other Reps that night – they went hairing off down the street after a bus, which I missed!  And so I tootled off in the other direction and caught a tube, and arrived with two minutes to spare.  Soaked through with sweat.  Ugh. 

 

Yesterday, neither of my advertised coaching singers came, so I did some work on my own, and then went to a lecture for the new students, with Mr R.  This was just a general run-down on things. In the afternoon we had the run-through of the three operas.  After this I did another scream through London to go to a film at the National Film Theatre called Cat People.  It turned out to be not very exciting, except in a couple of spots, and rather obscure, and rather hilariously full of clichés.  But the shorts were what they call a study extract, from Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and K Hepburn. Its 8 minutes were worth sitting through the other thing. And the other short was called the life of a cat, and in spite of including a scene where five kittens were born before your very eyes!, showed the kittens as they grew and played with their father and mother, both of whom, for once, lived at the same address.  It was very delightful, particularly when they started to play with their father: one, pouncing on his daddy’s tail, until father turns round and belts him, the father himself encouraging them to play by pushing them around a slippery floor, and so on. Marvellous. There’s a Laurel and Hardy session on tomorrow evening, so I’ll think I’ll go, and this afternoon I’m going in to do some practice when there’s fewer people around. [handwritten] You've got to warn that you’re going in - they keep a GUARD DOG!!  Love Mike. [Which reminds me that I think they had a security guy there much of the time too, with whom I got on quite well.  But am I imagining that?]

23.9.68: The course starts...

Dear Mum – the 23^rd! – and we’re away to a flying start.  [I presume this was the day the course at the Opera Centre started.] Just before I go on, I must say one or two things that I keep forgetting.  Thank you for all the odds and ends of news from home; you say that you haven’t answered my letters, but I’m just as bad.  Thank the aunts for their little St Cecilia; it may be a wee while before I can write – do you know I think it’s actually cheaper to write one of these air-letters than it is to send a postcard!  Last time I wrote I was going to answer one or two things and didn’t get any further than the [the cat] poem, which set me off again, and made me rather miserable; though it was after the more distressing day that I’d just had previously so it must have been a combination of both.  I’m all right at the moment, anyway.  What I’ve kept meaning to tell you about was the squirrel I met in Regents Park, the day I didn’t go to the Zoo.  This cheeky wee thing must have thought I would have some food, and it kept coming up and then running off, until it finally came so close I could have hand-fed it if I had had some food.  Must have got disgusted with me when it discovered I didn’t and ran off.  But it was quite beautiful, with a lovely silver streak down its tail. 

On Friday we had the concert that I mentioned, with Ann and Kiri, and it was held at a NZ club way down at Wimbledon.  We nearly didn’t get there – Kiri was driving this car of hers (she and her hubby, who is at present in Persia) have a neat wee sports model, I suppose it is, but holds four if you follow, and they live in the Kensington are, which is quite toney, really; Joan Sutherland is a couple of streets away!) and after we’d picked up Mrs Thelma Robinson, the ex-mayoress, by about 2 years, of Auck., who was arranging our side of it, we drove off towards W. via the Putney Bridge: - the approach, alone, to the bridge took 20 minutes of easing forward in the late rush-hour traffic!!  Ann came on much later by taxi.  This club is next to the famous tennis courts, and is run by a rather snobby class of NZer, who are exactly the same as that sort of group are at home – particularly in the Nth Is.  So it was really like being NZ, quite honestly, and just as phoney as that sort always are there. [My longstanding egalitarianism coming out.] However, there were some pleasant people amongst them, especially an old lady (they said she was 90) who had recently come from Honolulu, via USA, by leaps and bounds, and was the person I most enjoyed talking to and from whom I was dragged away too early.  The concert didn’t go off badly, although I got fouled up rather badly in one of Kiri’s numbers, and though I recovered was a bit put out by it.  She very nicely said after that we only learn by our mistakes, and if that makes her sound just a trifle uppity, she is, but rather more nice than uppity! (Fortunately). [Biographies of Kiri, discussing this period in her life, tend to agree with my ‘uppity’ assessment of her at this point in her career. She’d been somewhat spoilt as a student by having more money than most, gifted from her supporters in NZ; she’d already made a movie in NZ, and she was hugely popular in the country.] 

Luton Hoo as it was in 1829 -
it was substantially altered after this. 

Out to the Crowls for the weekend again.  Nina had a cold, so didn’t go to Luton Hoo with us.  This is a stately home near Luton (the Hoo means a hill), but the place is well known almost entirely for its art and such collection, as the house is a mess – having been so altered and changed and partially burnt that none of its once [original] glory remains.  But it has 3 Rembrandts!, and a host of really beautiful odds and ends, particularly in the miniature line; that is, tiny glass cases with a whole crucifixion scene inside and other such miracles of miniaturisation.  How they can (a) had the patience, and (b) been able to see what they were doing with these tiny things is beyond me.  Then we each did what we wanted in the evening: Reg and M. listened to Bonaventure on the radio, Nina and Marg. and I watched a film on TV.  [Luton Hoo, which I don't remember visiting at all (!) was converted into a hotel in 2007; the priceless art collection is now on display at Ranger's House in London. Interestingly, the Wikipedia article doesn't mention any Rembrandts!]

For a short while on Sunday afternoon, Reg and I went to see Waltham Abbey, which has great historical interest as it is right near where the 1066 battle was fought.  King Harold is supposed to be immured (after he was dead, of course) in the stone work, but they don’t know where. [Once again, my 'facts' may not be quite up to the mark.] And it is a beautiful church. Reconstructed, I should think, but very cleverly.  Small, but gorgeous, with a crypt (so has Clement Dane’s, which is in the middle of the Strand – in the middle of the street, along with another church!, and which I stumbled into one day) a ceiling of wood panelling, with, good grief (!), the signs of the Zodiac down the centre, a painted set of carvings on the altar, some small but crowded, and original stained glass windows, and most unusual of all, an American vicar, with, ugh!, the most nauseatingly hale fellow well met line of patter I’ve struck!  Outside is the remains of a mill – the watercourse (2 of them actually) is all that’s left – it runs right under the houses and street built next to it – and the archway that has been there since the original Abbey – just the archway!  But it’s marked historic monument – so?!  [I'd love to know who this American vicar was and what he was actually like....]

TODAY!  Nothing to do this morning, it was a get acquainted with the school time, but this afternoon I had my first German lesson, along with 6 other beginners, an Oxford student (all these are ex, of course), a Royal College Maltese girl: very sweet and attractive (I shared my book with her...ahem?!), a Scots girl, a music teacher and a female arts student (both stage management [students]) and another boy with an endless laugh. What a team! But we are getting there. The lady teacher is Frau (?) Radinger. And she’s very nice, and sweet and a happy sort of person. I was supposed to have a coaching session after that with one of the singers, but she didn’t turn up!  I found out after that she’d been called off to do another something, but nobody bothered to tell me! Aaagh!

Tomorrow will be a much bigger day – I was home at 4.45 today – with a reps’ [répétiteurs] class all morning and two coaching sessions, and an Italian lessione! Wed doesn’t look very busy, but Thursday is again. (We go to a Götterdämerung rehearsal in the morning, at Covent Garden, I think!)  Friday seems easier again.  We have lunch time lectures on Friday and they promise to be very interesting.  At the moment, I’m less worried about how bad I am by comparison, because even though the others have all done lots of varied things, they must be there to learn something too, so!  Met some interesting [handwritten from here] students; Peter Lyon(s), who is very talkative, and quite interesting as well; a tenor who has worked (toured rather) with the B + W Minstrel Show and the Scottish Opera, and so on.  I’ll write again when there’s been a bit more happened.  Lots of love, Mike XXXXXX

[Peter Lyon got on well over the year; he went on to work for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, doing Gilbert and Sullivan roles.  After that he seems to have vanished from the Google history books.]