Letter not dated but postmarked 3rd 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
