It's a bit hard to tell where this letter fits in. Possibly I wrote two on one day, since the next one in the list is actually dated the 10th Sept. However, the information in this letter seems to indicate that it was certainly around the 10th or 11th.
Undated,
but postmarked 11 Sept 67
Dear
Mother, How are You? I am fine! Long hot day here in Sydney, so having nothing really to do , I went to the T. P. Zoo.
[Presume this is the Taronga Zoo – was it
called the Taronga Park Zoo at one point?] And got so lost that I kept
finding bits I hadn’t even realized existed. It’s a marvellous place, isn’t it?
Snakes – UGH! Giraffes – oooh! (One baby there, but he just sat.) Some peculiar
little animal that stopped and talked to me (everyone reckoned he was an
opossum, but he was in with the wallabies). A cockatoo that nearly burst my ear
drums with his ‘hullo,’ and two others that fell quite in love with me and
wouldn’t leave. Very friendly crowd of animals there – there – they nearly
all had time to stop and chat! And a
very good aquarium with some of the oddest and most beautiful fish I’ve seen.
Who said op-art was a new thing? God gave it to fishes centuries ago!
It’s a
ferry-trip, of course – or didn’t you know – I never know where you’ve been in
S. and where you haven’t; and the ferry goes round the Opera House, still being completed, but surprisingly
beautiful., and looked on as an attraction by even the most mundane of
Sydneyites.
 |
| AMP Building |
Went up
to the top of the AMP building to top off the afternoon. It’s 25 storeys high
(no 13 isn’t used except as an air-conditioning plant!) and the lift gets there
in about 5 secs flat. I had to make 2 trips to pick up some of the things I’d
left behind (stomach, heart, etc). And the view naturally is stupendous!
Surprisingly
enough that just about filled in the day, and I’m off to tea in a minute. I’ll
try a restaurant in Kings Cross tonite; went to the Continental (?) Café in one
of the thousand arcades late nite – very nice too. So, see ya.
Jack’s
mail arrived – somewhere along the line it’s been dipped in something pink! and
every letter including Grahame’s reference has got blodged in some part. Looks
like I’ll just have to wait and see whether it’s necessary to use that or not.
[I’m unclear as to who this Jack is –
Grahame may have been Grahame Clifford with whom I’d worked both as an
accompanist in Dunedin when he was teaching there, and again in Wellington when
he and I went on the Die Fledermaus
tour together, and became even closer friends. He’d been one of the top
baritone singers at Covent Garden in his day, and had originally come to
Dunedin with a D’Oyly Carte tour, playing the comic patter roles. When he
‘retired’ he thought Dunedin would be a good place to live. Unfortunately he
was never truly appreciated there.]
Had tea
in a place I won’t go to again. Wouldn’t even give me a serviette! Couldn’t
quite tell what the excuse was but the girl said, ‘We don’t…serviettes’?? So I
was none the wiser nor cleaner by the time I’d finished the meal.
I’d
rung Anne Newbury this morning and she suggested that since there were NO seats
available for any part of the opera season – it’s been sold out for months!! –
why not come along and see if I could get in behind the percussion players in
one of the side boxes to see it – ‘it’ being Turandot. Well, I met her (and also quite a few others from Fledermaus) [the others being some of the orchestra members from Fledermaus; the NZ Opera Co had used Sydney orchestral players for
some reason] and we found that there was simply NO room behind the
percussion players, because they had every conceivable instrument in there
already. So they suggested I go upstairs and stand at the back. Well, I tried
that, but was told at least 3 times by a fussy usher that the fireman would
growl, so I headed off at the end of the 1st Act, and discovered
quite by chance (or good management on the part of the guardian angel) that
there was room in the side box in the gods. And after the first act two people
moved out so I was free to take either seat. And what a sound it was. The view
wasn’t much – everyone looked like a dwarf (!) – but I was between the stage
and the orchestra practically and got the best of both! Marvellous.
 |
| Grahame Clifford, presumably as the Modern Major-General. |
The
production wasn’t anything remarkable, but the singing except for one or two
spots was wonderful – and the chorus was terrifically full-blooded. The woman
who played Turandot (who doesn’t come on till the 2nd Act) arrived
with a cloak that must have been 24ft long (!) made up (the cloak!) to be a
peacock (of sorts) and it was spread all the way down a flight of stairs by her
handmaids. And her costumes were terrific! Thousands of beads and glittering
things. Heaven knows how she stood up in it all. [The stairway, one of those typical ‘inspirations’ by the designer, took
up most of the stage, and while it was great for such effects as already
described, it left little room round the sides for the large chorus, and the
principals. Consequently, a lot had to be done on the stairway.]
Went
round to see Feist afterwards for a brief visit, and he sez he’ll probably be
there on Monday (!!) Oh well. [Bob Feist,
the conductor of Die Fledermaus, who
was by then working for this season in Sydney. An American
conductor, with some eccentricities. He and I had our moments,
in rehearsals, mostly because I wasn’t as familiar with Fledermaus as he expected I should somehow be. I also
played the glockenspiel in the performances, a fairly thankless task since the
part is not large – but they had to do something justify taking me around New
Zealand. A good deal of some performances was spent reading The Hobbit by the light of the orchestral lamp. I seem
to remember that I also played the triangle in the overture, and I certainly
played the glockenspiel as the ‘sound’ of Grahame Clifford playing on the bars
of the prison cell.]
So,
must go to bed. See ya, love Mike.
