3.11.68: Operas, Concerts, and du Pre

3.11.68

Dear Mum, I had intended to write on Friday, but what with one thing and another, especially the very busy week we’ve had, I just didn’t get round to it.  I had originally planned a not very busy week after the exhausting Ella Gerber period, but found in the end that I was out nearly every night.  On Tuesday, I had planned to go to The Italian Girl in Algiers at the [Sadlers] Wells with Michael – Kingsley had already been on the previous Saturday – but as things turned out I went with David Gorringe (think I’ve mentioned him before, if not, he’s small, 25, from Canterbury, an ex-furnishing business man, who’s very interested in the theatre) and Kevin, who had come back from the South Coast to get a job. Apparently the work over the winter period down there is considerably lessened and the hotel he’d been at couldn’t keep him on.  So anyway, he’s now going to be working in London, near Hampton Court (as far West as we are East) from tomorrow.  When he’s going to see his fiancée, I don’t know, because he only has Thursday – all day – and Sunday afternoon off!  He’s still working as a barman, incidentally.  [I don’t know who this ‘fiancée’ was – I don’t think I ever met her, or at least not more than once, and the engagement got broken off in due course.]

So we four went to the Italian Girl, and though it had some marvellously funny bits, I think I enjoyed the Opera for All production that much more.  Besides, where we were sitting in the Coliseum (the new Sadler’s Wells) in the Dress Circle we found that much of what was being sung on stage in the bigger ensembles was completely lost.  And they left out the funniest thing in the whole show, by not repeating the never-ending septet at the end of the first act, which I think I mentioned previously.  But it was very beautiful to look at, full of lovely luscious greens and blues, and with a marvellous set consisting of three variously-shaped platforms that fitted together sometimes, but other times would sort of float apart to form different levels.  It was produced by Wendy Toye who has also made several films. 

Prior to this I had gone up to David’s place to have a snack tea – he lives near Great Portland St, which is near Regent’s Park, Baker St, and Madame Tussaud’s, in a very nice, centrally-heated penthouse which he shares with a bloke who’s working on the Opera for All at the moment, but he only pays a quarter of the full rent because the flat is actually also leased by another bloke who uses it as a base for the business he partners with the other bloke (the OFA man – get it?).

Next night Michael and Lindsay Campbell (from Dunedin, an actor in his 50s whom Mike shares a flat with – near Oxford Circus – I think I told you).  Anyway I was invited up to their place for tea before I went because I was getting them in free (as I had the previous night – great isn’t it?) and we had a very nice meal cooked by Lindsay, who then also shouted us a cab to the theatre, and brought us a drink in the interval!  He was very appreciative.  According to Mike, though he (LC) has lots of friends he doesn’t really have many close ones and so it seems that he’s very happy to be taken somewhere so to speak.  [Lindsay Campbell had been one of Dunedin’s top amateur actors before heading for London; he appeared in a number of roles on TV from 1964 onwards and had a tiny part in A Clockwork Orange a few years after this letter was written.  He also claimed that he’d suggested the theme music for The Onedin Line.]

Anyway we went to La Belle Helene, by Offenbach and after I’d changed seats after the first act – I was sitting behind Hazel, from the Centre, and she had a lot of hair on! – I enjoyed it a lot.  Denis Dowling [a singer originally from Ranfurly, in Otago] was in it, by the way, and the whole thing was a hilarious spoof on Classical Mythology.  It was rather like a Gilbert and Sullivan on a slightly different scale.  It was produced, originally (this particular performance is a kind of re-production) by Basil Coleman who spoke at one of our lectures one day.

Oh, on the Tuesday night I forgot to say, Kevin came out and stayed with us, and slept on our divan which apparently he found quite comfortable. The only trouble was that we sat up and talked after we’d got home till about one.  Also forgot to say that on Monday morning we’d been to see Madame Butterfly at the Garden, and though the production, especially the lighting wasn’t always the best, it’s always worth watching Puccini.  And the singing was generally very fine. 

On Thursday night, Mike and Kingsley and I went to the Festival Hall, only because it was free, (I’d intended to stay home as I felt very tired) to see a gala concert – seats at anything up to 20 guineas! – and quite honestly it was the most disappointing concert I’ve attended.  Andre Previn was conducting, and Jacqueline du Pre was the cellist in two concertos.  They started off with a Weber Overture, which was interesting, and then Mrs Daniel Barenboim (he’s a pianist and she’s du Pre in private life) [did I mean she was du Pre in public life?] came out and played the Bloch: Schelomo (whatever that is) for Cello and Orchestra.  Bloch was a Jewish composer and this comes through quite strongly. Unfortunately he’d never had to contend with Miss DP, which we had to.  She plays the cello as though she wishes to tear its strings to pieces (authorities tell me one of her strings was off pitch anyway) and constantly produces a grating sound as she hacks at it, and then when she’s finished a section she turns and looks either at the conductor or the first violinist in a way that suggests they’d better not criticise or she’ll get up and belt them.  She’s all elbows too, and has a fierce look on her face throughout.  Her finest achievement of the whole evening was when she played down to the lowest notes on her cello, and instead of letting it vibrate with her left hand, she let that go, and continued bowing her right – I’m sure Mr Bloch never intended that ugly sound.  This overall effect was so off-putting that when she played her next, the Saint Saens, I looked anywhere but at her, and the effect was much more pleasant, although the SS is nothing to write home about.  The orchestra finished up with the Rachmaninov 3^rd Symphony – which dragged on until nearly the entire audience was asleep.  Perhaps this was Mr Previn’s fault, because people who said they knew the 3^rd, said later perhaps they didn’t!  What really got me was that the papers gave the whole mess a good write-up!!  And I though the London papers were supposed to be amongst the most fiercely critical in the world!  [It doesn’t occur to me that I may have been wrong about this concert; plainly something upset me in terms of the playing or the music. For an opposite viewpoint on it, check out Hywel David’s article, which says that the playing made him feel as though he was in ‘seventh heaven.’]

On Friday I went to Mass in the evening, All Saints Day, and then went again yesterday morning.  I couldn’t remember if one or both or neither were Holy Days of Obligation so I went both times to make sure!  They didn’t announce them as being anything special last Sunday, but however. [handwritten] Have to stop apparently. LOTS of love, Mike.

[Handwritten on the return address page] Kingsley sez thanks very much for the money for the trunk – he didn’t have time to say it before he left.

27.10.68 First performances and walking home...again

27.10.68

Dear Mum, I’m not sure how long it is since I last wrote, so if I repeat anything please forgive me.  I think it was about last Sunday wasn’t it?  Sorry that there are such long gaps between my letters to you but I seem to have been particularly busy this last week. I’m very grateful to get your letters so regularly; I’ve practically been able to rely on receiving one each Monday and Thursday for some weeks now, and it’s very nice. Got a Tablet, too, this week – with a postal note and a Peanuts [cartoon] inside.  The latter was especially welcome, and in fact, if you don’t mind, I wouldn't mind at all if you included the odd one in with the letters either. They’re real day-starters (told you mail arrives about 7.30 didn’t I?) so if you’ve got a pair of scissors handy...!  Thanks for the continued postal notes too – the extra amount brings two of them to 11/- and 8d, and though they always have to go away and check on the amount, it’s worth it – IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT!

Menotti as a young man

All this week we’ve had Ella Gerber on our hands of course, and I’m afraid to say everyone is glad to see the last of her.  She didn’t work at all like any producer I’ve ever met – she didn’t plot any moves out beforehand, and with the two Menottis seemed content to work it all out in her head and then wondered why what she’d say one day didn’t fit in the next!  She knows Porgy backwards, of course, but this didn’t seem to help either – the poor singers practically had to relearn the whole thing her way. It is now generally considered that when Gershwin wrote Porgy had no idea what he was doing and that he didn’t really mean to put anything down the way he did.  Ella has rediscovered it all and does it her way!  And to cap it all, Alistair, who was conducting Porgy, caught a whopper of a cold and was away from two of the most important rehearsals – so that when he came back and went to conduct the final rehearsal on Friday afternoon, Ella kept harping on about his having been away, and how so many things had been changed while he was away. The things he nearly did to her I won’t describe, but it was the most shambolic rehearsal I’ve ever been privileged to attend.  The Telephone and The Consul had gone off quite well at this rehearsal, so I don’t know why she got so Bolshy about this one!  Anyway, all 3 shows were equally successful in their own way in the evening.  We played them for the Friends of Covent Garden (people who subscribe to CG and get into the rehearsals) and our own friends in the University College Theatre, which is sort of North Central London.  All the Crowls came, and actually quite enjoyed it all, I think (I’d sent them a seven page set of notes that I typed out about the three operas so that they’d have a better idea of what they were all about) and Michael came, and for once didn’t think I played too loud, and Kingsley got as far as the tube station and couldn’t find the theatre itself.  He will not take the A to Z with him – seems to think he can always find his way about by merely looking at it at home here and then trying to do it all from memory. And then he wonders why he’s worried about getting lost!!  Perhaps this will have taught him a lesson. That all sounds a bit mean, but I can’t see why he’s too proud to use it.  He doesn’t seem particularly interested in making friends with people at Guildhall. Well, I don’t think I can help him there, it’s something he’ll have to do himself, and the sooner the better.  [Crikey, I sound like a fussy grandfather!]

I made a few blues in the playing of The Telephone, but nothing too worrying, and the audience really enjoyed it, and really laughed, what’s more.  The Consul was tremendously moving – I wouldn't have thought it could be, but yet some of the bits we’d thought most absurd during rehearsals were most effective.  I didn’t find Porgy and Bess nearly so moving – I don’t think Ella has ever managed to get anybody’s sympathy about it.  [I knew Porgy and Bess reasonably well from the NZ Opera Co’s production of it, which I’d seen when they toured it – I had ushered for it, so probably saw every performance in Dunedin.]

After the show, Mike and Hazel and David Gorringe (another stage manager and about 25, small with glasses and very friendly with a mad sense of humour) and David Syrus and I went to a nearby pub, and spent a while there doing considerably more talking than anything else – if that relieves your mind!  After that I went down to where Mike is now living – near Oxford St - and had a quick coffee because I didn’t want to get stranded in London city again – I told you about the previous Saturday, didn’t I?  Let me know if I didn’t.  So I shot down to the tube and caught the last train.  The only trouble was I started doing the Tablet crossword, and went straight past my station!  The next train was some time about 5 am, so I had to start walking back to Plaistow, which shouldn't have been far. But, the ticket-collector gave me rather obscure directions and I found (later) that I was actually walking north instead of west.  [Plainly I hadn’t taken my own advice about always carrying the A to Z!]  I finally caught a bus back to Plaistow to the street running parallel with Balaam St, and arrived home about one thirty. 

Kingsley and Mike and I went to Don Giovanni on Thursday (for nothing and sat in the front row!) and Kevin, who had just arrived back from Spain, came too.  It wasn’t a bad production, but the designing was terrible. None of the clothes belonged to any particular period – except one that looked like German 18^th century, and the sets were like a child’s play box on a larger scale.  Terrible! [This may have been the Sadler’s Wells production, the first production for the company at their new home at the Coliseum. It was directed by John Gielgud, and wasn’t well received, apparently.]

[Hazel, mentioned above, by the way, is from British Guyana, and has been here for about nine years or seven?  She’s twenty-seven, and has a very infectious laugh.)

Yesterday went out to the Crowls, and in the afternoon went with Reg to the jumble sale being held for the Intellectually Handicapped Children’s Society, and finished up selling old men’s clothes. Quite a lot of fun, actually, trying to match up the men who came along with the clothes we had. And this morning after Mass, Reg and I went and walked in Hampstead Heath, which goes on for miles in every direction, and would be very easy to get lost in. [We revisited Hampstead Heath in 2007 when staying with a friend in Kentish Town – I’d forgotten just vast it is.]  I better go and do some washing now as I didn’t seem to have much time to do anything last week.  Lots of love, Mike. 

20.10.68 The Magic Flute & a long walk home

20/10/68

Dear Mum, I can’t recall when I last wrote whether Ella Gerber had arrived or not, but she came on Wednesday, and promptly set the place in disorder, by rearranging all the schedules that had been worked out for her, and never keeping to her own time-tables either. And though she may do the students a lot of good in acting – she would make a marvellous play producer, she seems to know very little about music at all, and consequently it’s very hard to make her appreciate points that are necessary to the productions from the singers point of view. 

Anyway, enough of her. We went to see The Magic Flute on Friday morning.  (Also saw the Opera for All version of Manon – it wasn’t bad, although I think the production has some very bad moments, and Ann Gordon who is doing Manon, is really very good, but the thing rather requires a huge chorus and stage, to hide the faults that promptly turn up when done this way.  Never mind, it was quite enjoyable and the third act is excellent.)  The Flute is a delight.  It’s sheer pantomime, anyway, but has the added advantage of a good bloke on the musical side – Mozart!  The whole thing is done on a sort of raised stage with an infinite variety of squares set into it. It is only after the first scene that one appreciates the fact that the entire floor is full of trap-doors and throughout the piece, people suddenly vanish through the floor or appear unexpectedly in a cloud of smoke, or props rise out of it, etc. Fascinating. The dragon in the first scene is a little tame – he hangs in mid-air, snorting a bit but not really threatening the hero. But when the Queen of the Night arrives a little later, the scenery at the back rolls away to thunder and lightning, and a set of stars appear to reveal her slowly gliding forward on a platform.  The girl who is playing her – a Dutch lady – has so remarkable a voice it almost ceases to be human in sound.  When she sings at first it doesn’t sound like much, but once she starts her coloratura you wonder how such perfection can exist in a human being.  Every single note is clear – there’s practically a definite click between them, and she hits top Ds and Es etc as though it were as easy as eating.  [This was Christina Deutekom – rest of the cast listed here.]  The rest of the cast are equally good: the tenor is the right shape, and sings well, the soprano heroine is gorgeous in every way, the bass is like a singing statue but the sound is magnificent, and the women who play the three ladies, even though they have some tricky ensemble work, have such clear enunciation that you wonder if you’re really hearing it right. And the Papageno, though his voice is not to my liking, is very funny.  But the whole thing is full of delightful ideas – the animals (about twenty children) who appear when Tamino plays his flute, the chorus of baddies who dance away when Papageno plays his magic bells, the three boys (who sing very well) and invariably appear in a floating chariot type thing that swings slowly and gracefully across, up, down and around the stage, the lighting effects throughout: lamps that appear to have no source, but which quietly flicker away in a kind of non-existent breeze, a huge cyc (pronounced syke) [short for cyclorama] or plain backcloth that at one part turns from a daylight blue slowly through every blue in existence, carpets that don’t just roll straight forward, but which have a bias in them and roll round at an angle, so that they look like they are vanishing over the horizon (like the yellow brick road in Oz) and so on and so on.  It’s surely one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen on stage, and I really wish you too could see this particular show.  [I’d seen the NZ Opera Company’s Magic Flute a few years before this, and had been charmed out of my socks by their production, so this must have been good. I can still visualise the Queen of the Night’s entrance, in fact.]

This weekend I didn’t go up to the Crowls as we had a rehearsal on Saturday morning, and it wasn’t due to finish till 1.00, and that’s too late to start tootling up there, though Reg suggested I come up a bit later. But I said I felt perhaps I should stay home and show Kingsley round a bit of London (as it happened he didn’t seem particularly interested when I did. He’s a funny boy in some ways: - he seems to think I’m very reserved, particularly as far as the opposite sex is concerned, [I was] and yet quite honestly, I think the boot’s entirely on the other  foot. Don’t mean I’m Don Juan, but I think I’m interested in a more general outlook on life, etc. He doesn’t drink, smoke, eat sweets or fruit, or ice-cream, doesn’t read books, aaaagh! Seems to me to be a rather narrow sphere he’s set himself.  However there’s no use forcing things on him, but thank goodness Mike’s still here, cynical and unpunctual as he may be, he’s at least on my wavelength.) [This may be a bit harsh about Kingsley: he was probably just interested in things that I wasn’t interested in!]

At 5.30 last night, I went to where Mike is at present living – Kingsley was going to Aida – and from there we went round to Kensington way somewhere where Norman and Doris McKinlay from Dunedin were staying and finished off the scraps of food and drink that they wanted to get rid of before they left today on their way home. They’ve been here about three months on a business trip. I think. [Norman McKinlay, as I recall, was involved in theatre in Dunedin, but wasn’t someone I knew well; he’d have been better acquainted with Mike.]  Mike and I had intended to go to a film at the NFT at 8.45 but we didn’t get there, and so found ourselves in Oxford St at 10 or so with nothing to do.  Well, we wandered down through Soho (which even at night is only rowdy, not dangerous or anything, rather sleazy perhaps) and called in at a pub just before closing time (11.00) and had a half of bitter (compare Coronation St!).  Mike thought that buses ran all night so we decided to go to a late film showing, and went, and got out at 1.30, to find that buses don’t run on Saturday night for some obscure reason.  So we wended our way back to his flat which is close by, and had a cup of coffee and a glass of brandy and ginger, to put some warmth into me, because I’d decided to walk home. At least a good deal of the way and then get a taxi for the last part. Well, I left Mike at 2.50 and covered something like four miles in an hour and about 20 minutes. It’s a straight, though long walk from Oxford St via Commercial Rd to Plaistow. And wound up getting a taxi for the last couple of miles and arriving home about 4.30 a little tired! But actually it was quite an enjoyable night, just relaxed, and with nothing special to do. Mike and I are like brothers now, I feel [handwritten], we accept each other’s faults because we’ve known each other so long and just enjoy what’s left of each other’s company.  Luv Mike.

[From Oxford St to Newman Rd in Plaistow, via Commercial Rd, is about seven and a half miles.  Google reckons it would take about two and a half hours walking. Perhaps I was following in Charles Dickens’ footsteps: he often went for long walks at night, anything up to twenty miles!]

16.10.68 My flatmate arrives

This might be the last of these posts for a couple of weeks: I'm away in Christchurch babysitting the house of some friends.  

16^th Oct 68

Dear Mum, thanks for the added amount on the postal notes – they gave me 10d on each one – which seems to me rather a lot, but he went away and looked it up and everything, so I didn’t complain.  But listen, you’ll have to stop spending half your pay each week on me like this.  It really is a bit much.  By the time you've paid for the stamps and excess on the P.N.s, and everything else, it must cost a small fortune.  You’ll have to be a bit more moderate really – or else I’ll have more money here than you! 

Kingsley arrived on Monday, though hardly as planned.  In fact I spent a very frustrating day on Monday.  I seemed to recall that he was arriving in the afternoon, so as I was finished at the Centre at 4.15, I tootled off to Earls Court to meet him, thinking that he would probably be there by then.  When I got there, he wasn’t, and it turned out he was booked in at the Salisbury Court Hotel, just around the road. So round the road I went, and he wasn’t there either. So I rang the Air Inquiries up to see when the flight from Vienna was to come, and they told me it would be about an hour late, at 6.30, which meant it would come into the West London Terminal at about 7.30.  So I wandered round there and waited patiently till then – about an hour and a quarter, and then went down to the bus part to meet him.  At about 8.30 there was still no sign of him, and I was a bit anxious to know what to do.  I kept ringing up the hotel to see if he’d gone straight there, and getting them to send out calls for him at the airport, but there was no news of him anywhere.  So I went and had a bite to eat, and then walked back to the Salisbury Court hotel, only about ½ of a mile, and left a long note with instructions and the other key for the flat.  And went home.  I decided to ring back when I got to Plaistow to see if he had arrived. The first phone booth didn’t have the book in which the number I needed would have been, the next one found the hotel engaged, the next one wouldn't take the 6d and the girl at the other end just kept saying hullo until I rang off, the next one was quite dead, the next one had the earpiece missing, the next had the whole receiver missing, the next was dead, the next was so wrecked it wouldn't even sit on the ledge, and in the next a man was doing his weekly accounts I think, because he seemed to be waiting for someone to ring back, and in the last one I tried there was nothing to put any money in! I should have known I think that there was something behind all this but I was getting so mad...!  Anyway, I burst into the flat to find the boy in bed!!  And I get mad again to think of it.  He’d arrived in the morning, coming on an earlier flight if you please, and even then he’d arrived at the West London Terminal, had somehow come to the conclusion that it was closer to Plaistow than to the OVC, if you can believe, and had gone out there.  He was lucky to strike Mrs Marshall home.  I didn’t go mad at him, though I really felt like doing so – he could have at least rung me, I think, and anyway I was rather over being mad at anything by that time – I’d cursed and sworn at so many phone booths that I’d calmed down a bit!

However he seems to be getting on all right and he’s sort of reasonable round the flat and helpful – if that doesn’t sound like granddad talking!  [It sounds more like Grandma talking.] But I arrived home tonight, at 8.15 to find him in BED!  Bit strange, but never mind. 

Was out at the Crowls again at the weekend, though this time we didn’t really go anywhere much  - I had to go and play for someone from the Centre on Sat morning, up in Baker Street way, and this made everything later.  I’d been able to warn the Crowls fortunately. (And I got ten bob for my playing too!)  We were to go to Hatfield House, but it was closed till Easter and we looked in at the tail-end of a Fayre, in the grounds.  Then home, and Nina and Margaret and I watched some very curious TV.  On Sunday, I had to spend quite some time doing languages, but Reg and went for a short trip up to a very uninspiring church, in the very last Northern London suburb. 

Ella Gerber arrived today, and seemed to leave chaos (!) behind her because she has such different ideas of the three pieces of Opera we’re doing that we’ve all had to rethink. And unfortunately she knows very little about music, so I really wonder if she will be of any great value – she may give the singers some acting ideas – there’s no doubt she is a fairly good producer, but as far as producing opera goes, I don’t really think she knows enough.  She knows what she wants with Porgy and Bess, but we have some considerable doubts about it being what Gershwin wanted!  Anyway now that she’s here we’ll have to put up with her I guess.

We’re having a rather tiring week – at least I am.  On Monday of course I spent the time looking for his lordship, and last night he and David Syrus and I went to [a] film that we will probably miss otherwise, and then we didn’t get home till about 10, and then I had to get myself something to eat, tonight we had Miss G. until 7.30, and tomorrow we have a dress rehearsal of the Opera For All Manon, and on Friday we go to see The Magic Flute in the morning and then have Ella for the rest of the day, and then we have her again on Sat morning.  And somewhere along the line we’re supposed to be doing the work for our ordinary classes.  But I feel tired out already!  Oh well, I suppose we’ll get there.

Kiri, and another girl from the Centre are in an opera (being done in concert version) at the Queen Elizabeth Hall – adjoining the Festival Hall, on Friday night, and I’d rather like to see that too...  It’s just impossible, though. 

Well, for once I seem to have some room on the end of a letter.  Have you sent those clothes to Francisco at all.  If you do will you let me know and I’ll let them know that it’s coming.  Or do you think they’ll be too small for him already? [Francisco was a Korean boy whom I had been supporting for some time in a Korean Orphan Scheme run by a Catholic priest in the country.] 

[handwritten] well, that seems to be it, and look at all the space I’ve got.  LOTS OF 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?]