12th Sept 1967 (probably) - Audition

Undated, as usual, but postmarked the 12^th. A Tuesday.

Well, dear old mother, Things are slowly sifting along. Today was A-DAY (audition day) and Crowl duly went along. But let me start from the beginning.

John Hammond

This morning I woke up feeling just a trifle panicky about not having been able to do any practice for nearly a week, so rather than do it blind and practice on the bench-top in my room (which I tried!) I scouted round to see if I could get a studio. Well, I looked through all the likely places in the Pink pages, and finished up ringing Palings, a big music store. I knew from passing that they were a large place, but they didn’t have any now, so I was probably a few years too late! However, they suggested (at my request) ringing the Conservatorium, but they couldn’t help either. They suggested Ricordi’s, who did have one. So I screamed in and booked it. They’re on the 5^th floor on a place in Pitt St, and like the Chess Club building it’s a very old (and slightly sleazy) place. But they had a piano! So I John Hammond (who apparently played correspondence chess with Dad quite a bit). In spite of the name, he’s some sort of European (a ‘semi-millionaire’ according to Cecil) and anyway, he very kindly gave me the name of a guy who is very up in the music world, with his (Hammond’s) card. So!
walked fairly solidly (in about 150 degrees heat) and then went and had lunch with Cecil and a friend of his,

Next, (after another free lunch!) I returned to K.C., and spent the next half-hour or so getting nervously ready, (including pressing my suit pants!) Actually, at that stage I wasn’t greatly concerned about anything; the music had gone all right at the practice, so I wasn’t very worried. BUT!, I soon got to be! Anyway, I got round to the Trust (about 10 minutes’ walk) and found my way to Mr Oxenbold (who turned out to be much younger than expected) and he directed me to a studio. By this time I didn’t feel like practising, but I warmed up (ha! ha!) a bit and fiddled about till they came for me. [This may have been Moffatt Oxenbould, later the artistic director of Opera Australia.]

Three men in long, tall suits arrived – Mr Hall, Mr Bynel, and Mr King.  (The first two are producers) (the other a not very good conductor – according to Anne). They asked me to play something I was comfortable in (!) and so I whipped into the Beethoven. But I don’t think it was terribly inspired. Anyway, they stopped me before (after some effort) I’d finished it and plunked three horrible scores down in front of me – in quick succession. First Trovatore, a snaky soprano area which I started, and was asked to take faster! Well, I ploughed thru that. Then, (ho! ho!) (but I didn’t tell them till after that I knew it) Fledermaus. The Czardas, to be precise, which I also had to start again, because I played an incorrect note that I seem to recall playing for a while back in ’66! Then, ugh, ugh, the most fiendishly fast baritone aria that Mozart ever wrote, from Giovanni – Presto (multissimo) (it might as well be) – well, we didn’t get on too well (like the Trovatore, I already had a fair idea how it went) but we finished it; it’s a louse. (The baritone in NZ sang it in Italian because he couldn’t manage it in English!) Don’t suppose that would have mattered anyway. [This was toured in 1965, if I have my facts right, along with Trovatore. I ushered at His Majesty’s for at least one performance. Coincidentally, as I retype this, I’m just working my way through the score of Don Giovanni, including that notorious Presto, in preparation for Opera Otago’s production in August 2018.] 

Well, after that, they walked and left me to gather up my shattered nerves! (Sorry about all the “!”s, but life’s full of them just now!) BUT, Stephen Hall said he’d like to see me in about half an hour’s time, so I went and had some coffee, not really caring what the outcome was, but slowly gathering back my calm! One hour later I finally got hold of him again, and he was surprisingly encouraging.

He reckoned that I’d got ‘quite a lot of talent’!!!!!! So I modestly said, ‘Yes, I knew that already,’ ‘what else is new?’[I’m not even sure whether this is a joke, but I hope it is.] Anyway, after a small chat, (wherein he took down quite a few details) he asked me if I’d come back in a couple of days, when he’ll get some others to hear me – so, that seems to be reasonable. He sez it’s unlikely that I’d get any work until next year (which I’d expected) but he reckons that there’s limitless opportunities for coaches if wanted, and all in all he was quite nice, in spite of the fiasco. He reckoned, in fact, that I coped fairly well with the music, because I didn’t take one look at it and go – ‘Oooh!’ (I didn’t tell him I probably would have if they’d given me something I didn’t know.)

So, since then I’ve rung the Conservatorium, and they suggest coming along and seeing them about accompanying the teachers. IF (I said ‘if’) I can get work (I’ve still to try the Rockdale and State Opera Cos) both of which should be paying propositions!) I might stay here – you wouldn’t object too strongly would yuh! I’d miss you too, terribly, but it might have to be. If I did stay, I’d see, say the priests at St Mary’s and see (or even St C…) if they could get, or knew of, some board, or even a decent flat, I could share. (I don’t think I’d like to live alone too long!)

Sooooo! We’ll see what happens, and I’ll keep in touch! By the way, I got a letter from YOU today – sorry about the car – but it’s nice to see you still love me!

LATER Went to see Flying Dutchman tonite – percussion box practically empty – so sat there. [This was because I’d played with a number of the members of this orch in NZ, and the percussionist and I were good friends: so he gave me free access to the performances.] Very dreary production – hardly any attempt made at acting by the principals, but singing great. Orchestra very weak throughout, particularly the horns and brass. Quite effective lighting – 1 and 3 acts (on boat and wharf) done behind a gauze cloth, which gave it all a misty effect. Krug came into the box during the 3^rd act – and had a wee chat.

Love Mike

30.12.69 - Morose post-Christmas feelings

Dated 30.1.69 but more likely 30.12.69 - handwritten over two aerogrammes.

Hullo, hullo, you won’t get this letter for another year, but never mind, any news that’s in it won’t be quite that old. I hope you had a fabulously happy Christmas, surrounded by lots of cheery relations ˗ that makes you sound a bit matriarchal, but I don’t quite mean it that way! I hope the post-Christmas period didn’t quite get you the way it got me ˗ I enjoyed myself thoroughly up until about 10.00 on Christmas night, and then a great feeling of depression crept over me (especially when I found I had to make a great Tube detour in order to get home from Mike’s) and has stayed with me, on and off, since then. I’m beginning to feel that I must be getting to be a neurotic or summat; I keep swinging from fits of bustling energy and effervescence to fits of torpor and turpitude (that is if there are two such words!). There are a great variety of reasons ˗ each counterbalanced by pointing to the fact that I oughtn’t to be depressed!

David’s been away for a fortnight so my usual ‘sounding-board’ is out ˗ but Cathy has been more friendly of late ˗ but Ian has been miserable, and plays the same Joan Baez record till the early hours while he tries to finish not the best painting he’s ever done ˗ and I revised a song the other day and thought it was now much more acceptable and it only seems just as wrong in a different way (oh, the problems of artists!!!) and they’ve brought in a new rule at work that means we have to fight and argue with half the people that go in and yet I’m getting on fabulously well with my co-workers, the boss Trevor, and Mike, his assistant from Jersey (he’s only about 25) ˗ but they are both leaving in a month ˗ and Margaret, one of the other cashiers ˗ the most delightfully crazy person I’ve ever met ˗ we have each other in hysterics within minutes, much to the bemusement of the customers ˗ and one of the ‘perks’ of the place is the ability to get in free at any West End Cinema; and I’ve felt homesick for NZ lately and yet find Londoners the most fascinating bunch of individuals I’ve ever come across ˗ in spite of the fact that 60% of them are very thick, and seem to have no initiative (and are the biggest pack of ‘fiddlers’, though on the most petty scale) ˗ the immense variety inherent in 12,000,000 people has to be seen to be believed. [My apologies to Londoners: this is the typically opinionated viewpoint from someone who likes to generalise!]

Mike and I went to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve ˗ at the Brompton Oratory ˗ with a Mozart Mass performed (I couldn’t see the altar but we were right beside the singers and orchestra!) and the crowd of South West London trendy types and ‘fashionable’ Catholics (and nons) [non-Catholics, presumably] was out of this world. I then walked home afterwards ˗ London isn’t sufficiently go-ahead in its ideas to have transport after 12.30 [this from someone who’d grown up in a city where such late night transport still doesn’t exist] ˗ and because everyone else was picking off the taxis as I hailed them ˗ well, would you believe...? ˗ I walked about four miles and was within two minutes of home (by taxi) when I finally got one. And my feet were wet through! But Mike and I had spent the evening talking more than usual but about all we got out of it is the fact that we don’t either of us seem to be getting anywhere or

[second aerogramme]

have any particular viewpoint in view. Reg was saying to me that it’s great, he thinks, that people don’t have to settle into a job when they’re young as his generation did, but there is the other side of the coin, in that, because it’s so easy to get work, one tends not to bother to settle into anything, and to waffle around. Life always seems to be too short, at twenty-four!!

Again, I’d like to see a lot of things, in Europe, etc, but I’d also quite happily be married ˗ and unless I find a very accommodating wife, the combination of the two would be difficult. I always seem to be harping on this marriage thing, don’t I, but it seems to be very much on my mind of late. But of course, as you no doubt understand, it’s a hangover from the H. business ˗ one doesn’t value a thing until one loses it. I don’t suppose I need explain this much, to you ˗ that’s another fault of youth ˗ we can’t get it into our thick heads that other people have the same sort of feelings and experiences! So the end result of this long misery, is that I’m just a mixed-up kid!!

And there’s this usual fluctuation about the music angle. Whether it’s worthwhile carrying on with it or whether I’d be better to go off as a hobo for the next few years, and settle down to a nice quiet (ugh! I’m sorry) office job! I’m afraid I’ve got the troublesome spirit in me that seems to have caused Dad all his bother ˗ an unhealthy mixture of adventure and security ingrained in my bones. Not only unhealthy, but fairly irreconcilable. You’ve got it, too, haven’t you ˗ though the security side of it seems to have got the upper hand ˗ the only present sign of the other is your inclination to manage to live on a much smaller bank account than you ought to have at your age ˗ and to give away any little excess you may have to your next-to-useless son.

I sometimes think it’s better to have no brains at all (I mean me, not you!!) ˗ then you have considerably less worries because all your interest in life is pared down to basic essentials. Want a set of brains? ˗ they don’t seem to be much good to me ˗ what’s the use of a feverish quest for knowledge? You only find a whole new vista of unanswered questions before you and the effort of taking stands upon certain points of view is incredibly wearying. No wonder ‘Humanists’ think Catholics are wrong ˗ to them the Catholic way of living seems to go counter to every type of desire there is, and there’s nothing like a Humanist for giving into the present desire. What the consequence is, is no doubt unimportant...

I had a lovely Christmas day ˗ apart from the fact that Mike gave me Verse and Worse for a present!! (he gave me a book I already had for my birthday too!) ˗ but half a dozen of us went to Mike’s flat, and it was warm and convivial and jovial and quite Dickensian and delightful. And yet of the present too. One of the girls had her two year old son there ˗ the most affectionate child I’ve ever struck (no, I didn’t!) [strike the child, I presume I mean: weak attempt at humour]. The three bachelors there, (self included) all became quite fatherly. The boy’s father is no longer within ken ˗ as far as I could make out ˗ not dead, but no longer with us! It wasn’t necessarily better than last year’s Christmas, just much more relaxed: five New Zealanders, and an Aussie ˗ what could you expect??  Love, Mike. 

7.5.69 Busy week

7.5.69 [This aerogramme was handwritten, and has a number of words missing presumably due to the hastiness of the writing]

Dear Mum, I thought I’d better start this off while I have a minute, because I don’t seem to have much free time coming up this week. I’ve been very very busy for Bamford, for one thing, and I also had to do some work for another of the Reps at the Centre which took all Monday night up.

To recap a little: the previous Sunday night , David Gorringe and I went to the Palladium (!) because he had free tickets, and saw the filming of a Variety Show there for TV. (We were one [I think I meant ‘two’] of about 2000 in the audience!) It was rather interesting really because, though it wasn’t like being in a TV studio, a lot of the details were the same. (Have I told you, incidentally, that John and I went out and bought a table, for £2, a drawleaf one, and four Edwardian chairs for £4?? This was rather more than I wanted to pay for so little, but the chairs at least may be quite valuable, and are certainly solid!) [My eternally misplaced optimism about getting a real bargain at a secondhand shop.] (We also have a piano which we got for nothing, except the expense of getting it to the flat. It’s not in the best of conditions but when I get a moment I’ll have a look at it.) ( We also have a fourth occupant of the flat; I think I’ve already mentioned he was coming. He’s Jeff, anyway).

Last Tuesday, Mike and I went to the Wells’ production of The Magic Flute*. Golly, this is a fabulous opera. I really enjoy it each time. Some of the singing wasn’t as good as the [Covent] Garden [production], and some was better and some was awful. And though the production wasn’t quite as magical in spots as the Garden, we still had the Queen of the Night appearing out of nothingness (simple, but always effective ˗ she arrived on a forklift truck apparently!) and a much better ordeal by fire and water. At the Garden they mostly went thru a lot of lit streamers that were either coloured red (for the fire) or green (for the water), but in this production they went in a cylinder-shaped thing which was broken in two semi-circular pieces; when they went into it closed right around them, was lit up inside, and then for the fire went red in flame-like lighting ˗ the two silhouettes still seen inside. For the water, instead of flames the cylinder appeared to fill with green water, and when it covered the two characters, Tamino, who all [the time] was playing his flute, caused bubbles to arise from his breath under water. This was one of many delightful touches. Apart from the obvious Masonic symbols etc, the opera contains one of the most superb love stories in all operas. Tamino and Pamina, who fall in love before they’ve even seen each other, are wonderful examples of the power of love over everything (including Masonry!). There’s one scene for example where Pamina tries to get Tamino to tell her he loves her, but because he’s been told not to speak to anyone, he cannot say anything, and she finishes her speech with the heart-breaking ‘I wish I could die’ ˗ and then pours out her anguish in one of the [most] beautiful arias ever written. In spite of all sorts of distractions she remains faithful to Tamino and they go through fire and water together in the end, tho’ that doesn’t seem to have been in the original plan!

On Wednesday, I did some work for Bamford and was told of something that he wanted to know if I’d like to do at the weekend. This was to go to a composer’s home in Hampstead (Wilfred Josephs ˗ I think he did the music for the Great War TV series) and with an electric eraser, to rub out stave lines (they’re printed on the back of the music) for some modern work. They said (the composer and his wife) it would take a couple of hours to do the fifteen pages ˗ well it took  four hours to do five!! What a job ˗ I’m off to do some more tonight and will probably have to do it again tomorrow night. I charged them 10/- an hour, which they paid, but I felt it might have [been] too much, until the Bamfords said, it was the least I should have charged! [I’m not sure what I mean about the staves being printed on the back of the music; the whole job ˗ I can only remember being at the house ˗ sounds a bit odd, and would have been a doddle in the computer age.]

And I went to the Crowls again ˗ with a COLD (but I’ve been taking vitamin tablets and it seems to have gone), and [had] a pile of checking as well as this four hours work. What a weekend!! I’m not going to get finished here I can see ˗ I’ll write another one soon, love Mike.

*I note that one of the cast members of the Wells production of The Magic Flute was Donna-Faye Carr, who was at the London Opera Centre during at least part of my year there. 

7.12.68 The big Christmas letter

This is the longest letter by far.  For once it was typed on ordinary paper rather than on an aerogram, and it ran to a massive eight pages, with additions and postscripts.  
Started 7.12.68 
Dear Mum, in one of my most recent letters, I talked about sending you a long letter, as a part Christmas present, instead of one of these eternally too short aerograms.  And what a mess I’ve made already of this letter!  I may not send this for a few days, the last mails don’t close till the 13^th I note, so if you haven’t received my usual (nearly!) weekly letter, you’ll know when you get this, why.  Follow?  I’ve passed on what you’ve said about the Tithers to Mike, and I think he’s quite pleased about it.  Still haven’t been able to locate that chronometer makers’ place.  Apparently the bloke I was going to ask about it has left, so that closes up that avenue of detection too.  I’m not really going to grow a beard, though I still think that in this climate the more you can have covered up the better.  [Ironic, since I grew one a few years later, and have hardly ever taken it off since.]
Glad you don’t mind keeping me up on all the bods at home, not just the family, but others in the parish etc.  Funny to think that the kids round the place are starting to set out on careers.  Makes me feel as though I’m very disorganised, and only having just got started, so to speak, and even now, still not sure that I’m quite in my right field. I don’t know.  [I obviously wasn’t impressed with the fact that I’d already worked for five years in an office before touring with the Opera Company; career was the big thing in those days.] There seems to be so much that I don’t know, about basic operas even and such, and I’ve never had less confidence in my sight-reading before!  Strange is it not?  I seem to cope all right, but it seems to take a lot more work than it takes the others – or perhaps they do do the same amount of work, and I just never see it.  I find the one that I get on easiest with is Alistair.  He (and David) is 22, but very capable and originally intended taking up science! but couldn’t do it at University because he hadn’t done Latin, or some such!  Great to be able to drop something as involved as that and pick up something else like music full-time.  But Alistair always says hello, and looks pleased to see you and have a chat – David does too, but I feel he’s often a little condescending in his approach.  [Interesting that the one I maintained contact with, and got to know best, was David. I went to Alistair’s wedding but had little to do with him after that.]  He approaches music like too so perhaps it’s just his general nature.  [I wrote a footnote to this in the letter: But he seems less secure in himself than even I am sometimes – though he’s a very competent musician.] (I find it very annoying – well, perhaps not, just a bit curious – when people will talk to you one minute and then ignore you the next.  Using you as a sounding board because there happens to be no one better around obviously.  Lots of the singers are like this – actually that’s an exaggeration.  Some of them are, especially the second-year ones.) [I'm not sure who I'm talking about in regard to 'condescending' - David certainly wasn't, and I don't think Alistair was either!] Anthony is still very much the old man of the reps, it seems, though how he comes by this position I’ve no idea, and I find him the sort who isn’t prepared to accept a person’s limitations.  Fine, up to a certain point, but I think it may land him in some awkward spots later.  And he’s also the type that can get offended by being had on – this is an English fault, I think – as long as the joke is general it’s acceptable, but if it starts to knock their dignity somewhat, they get shirty.  [The difference between the Kiwi approach and the English one, I think.] Mona Semke was very much of this sort.  [Mona, an English immigrant to NZ with her family was very involved with the music scene in Dunedin, and we actually got on fairly well.]  Henry Ward is the one we least see – and has that vague, lost air, though I’m sure he’s neither, and consequently the women seem to fall for him. Especially the sopranos – the mezzos don’t seem to find him interesting, and neither do the girls in the stage managers class!  Funny!  He too, is a come-and-go acquaintance, and no one seems to know quite where they stand with him.  Give me people, any day, who will always acknowledge your presence!  That’s all I require.
I seem to have got over the cold all right, although the germ is still very prevalent in the school.  Everyone has had it, or has it still, and it’s unbelievable the number of singers who have it at present.  I had had a bottle of sherry in the flat since I first arrived, mainly for this very reason, or to occasionally soothe my ruffled feathers after a particularly wearing week – and at the time I had my cold it had only just run out – it had taken me nearly two months to finish it, so there’s little chance of my becoming alcoholic at this rate!  - and until I could go and get it myself I was unable to use it for its usual medicinal purposes! 
About the heater that Kingsley bought: he actually refuses to let me pay for it, and I have mentioned the subject once or twice more since he got it and he still won’t take anything, so!  As it is I don’t think he’s likely to run into any financial difficulties, what with his job, his organist position – did I tell you?  He’s organist for a church in the next parish – the fact that his mum is paying ten pound a month into his accounts for travelling expenses...and so on!  so I didn’t really feel that I’m being mean and sponging. 
We received the bill for the trunk yesterday – not only has it cost whatever it was in Dunedin, but it’s now over a month and a half late, and the other one has also come!, but the trunk is costing another £18!!!! at this end, and the small box £12!  Again I offered him a cheque for half - £15, but he wouldn’t take it, as he said the box was his idea, so he only wanted £9 for the trunk.  [I don’t remember, but we must have shared sending a trunk to the UK.] Well, I’m afraid I’m not really in the position to be overgenerous, and when someone says they don’t want money, I take them at their word.  Do you think this is fair enough?  Anyway, the heater is in my opinion (and, of course, do you think I can get it to work properly? It always does what the instructions says it must not do when I light it) is of questionable value, because although it heats the room reasonably, it’s next to useless for drying anything on, and consequently I’ve got a fire on here tonight to air my washing.  (And the fire went out the first time I lit it too!!!  Why, oh why, wasn’t I born practical?)
Re the Crowls, I haven’t gone up again this weekend, so that’ll be three weeks since my last visit, but this weekend we had a rehearsal this morning – Saturday – and I really felt I needed a break from travelling somewhere in London!  [There’s a footnote to this rehearsal on a separate page: This morning’s rehearsal: conducted by James (Robertson) so everyone calls him – or Big J!! and he was a lot more even-tempered, especially with me, than I expected! Keeps forgetting I’m only a student, ha! ha!]  Anyway, I can do next weekend, as I know we haven’t a rehearsal, and hope they don’t mind the long gap!  Funny isn’t it, since before I came, you were worried that I might wish myself on them too much!  Another funny thing.  Remember I said Kingsley was doing all the shopping.  Well, this weekend, he asked me if I was going up to the Crowls, as usual, and when I said no, he explained that he’d thought it might be better from now on to live entirely on small meals – for him, I hasten to add!  - at least, at weekends, I think his idea is.  So this meant that I’m now back in the position of being able to experiment if I wish!  Talk about things falling into place.  So this afternoon, after the rehearsal, I got off at the big supermarket in Barking Road, next to the open-air market it is, and spent some time trying to be a little different, but anyway finished up buying things with a bit more flavouring to them.  E.g. instead of plain spaghetti I got spaghetti Bolognese, and I bought some rice risotto too.  In tins of course – these are just for snacks at night – or tea, that is, as opposed to the reasonable meal we get at the school in the midday.  (That mess is a tear in my tape). [The typewriter tape, that is, making splodges in the words.]  Got some soups too, and also some mince for tomorrow – it should keep in the present cold atmosphere [handwritten footnote: Continual frosty, misty atmosphere, cold, but not unbearable – though I wear gloves and scarf all the time – and am thinking of buying a thick (cheap!) overcoat.] – instead of the roast that K usually turns up with at the weekend.  Not that I don’t think the latter isn’t quite a good idea – but to get a reasonably cheap roast and a meaty one is almost an impossible task, and I can’t see much point in getting a piece of meat that I for one am not going to eat very much of!
I must write to Marilyn, [a former girlfriend] too, tonight, it’s ages since she sent me her last letter – with a postal note to pay for the return stampage!  (The p.n. needless to say has long since gone in the Crowl kitty, and equally needless to say it will now have to come out again.)  How are you doing with all those bills and things I seem to have calmly left you with?  I feel rather awful about it all: the TV, the insurance, the Building Society, and all your own normal ones.  Are you coping?  If not, scrub the insurance – I can always start again. [I presume these were items I’d been paying for up until this point at home.  We did cancel the life insurance.]
What a delightful story about Fred.  Isn’t she a horror?  I nearly had a fit too when you said she’d practically laid down and died – I hope she doesn’t do anything as silly as that; she’s the one thing that I know keeps you permanent company, and I’d hate to see her bash her head on something!  Talking of cats, have you heard any more about the Mrs Leslie and Kevin [Rowlands] thing?  I’ve never heard a word from him – do you think I should start again?  did you know you included a blank sheet of paper in with your last letter?
I’m in the middle of reading a life and discussion of Puccini – seems this is another branch of the business that I’m very much behind on. (The lives of people.)  Fortunately, the tickets for the library that our [Opera] Centre Library made us members of, also enables you to get books out in any other library in London.  This means therefore that you’ve a fantastic choice.  The only trouble is, how am I going to read two or three million books in the next nine months?  Do you know – yes I’m sure you do, that I’ve been here three months?  It’s quite unbelievable.  The time just absolutely flies, and I’m convinced that the average English day is considerably shorter than those in NZ.  Perhaps when they’ve been mucking around with the Standard Time they’ve lost some hours somewhere.  This is the first year they haven’t had the change, and of course they’re making a great to-do about it in some quarters.  [The standard time used in Britain all the year round from 1968 to 1971, set one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and equalling Central European Time.] A little boy was killed going to school in the dark, and the headlines were almost as big as those for the death of a Queen.  As I see it, the poor kid could just as easily have been killed in the daylight.  He was only five, after all.
[Edited section]  Anyway, Figaro (which is one of the most popular operas in the world no doubt, and yet this is the first time I’ve ever seen it – I was quite amused when one of the visiting reps said he’d be amazed if there was anyone in the room who’d never seen Figaro!) was very good – its faults lying rather in the opera than the cast, except perhaps Raimund Herinx, the baritone, who annoys me constantly.  I lie, actually, when I say that – he is very good as long as he doesn’t have to do anything that requires him to stand out too much from the crowd.  His aria last night was pathetic.  His Rigoletto, which I saw the night I arrived in London, was surely one of the biggest casting mistakes ever perpetrated at the Wells, his solo part in Belshazzar’s Feast was an uninteresting mess, and the best thing I’ve seen him do was a part in The Violins of Saint Jacques, where he does nothing particular, which seems to suit him fine!  [And yet, he was in constant demand throughout the singing world.]  The girl who played Susanna – Margaret Neville – though not possessed of a big voice, is a delight to behold, and exactly the right type for the part.  I found the third act very slow, mainly because absolutely nothing except the writing of a letter and its sending take place, but it takes an age!, and this is Mozart’s fault if anyone’s. 
Mentioning the Violins of S.J., by the way, I may as well tell you about that too. It’s another Malcolm Williamson – remember I saw The Growing Castle? – but this one is a little older, about 18 months, and this performance I saw was the last this season which is a pity, because you need to see a new opera a few times to get hold of it.  Particularly as far as the story goes in this one.  I’d read the first act synopsis before it started and had gleaned from amongst a welter of acts that three of the four people I’d see were related: a brother and sister, and their cousin.  When the brother proved to be in love with the cousin (a girl), and the cousin was in love (good grief) with the sister!, I thought I’d got my facts wrong – but this was all correct!  No wonder the island blows up at the end of the opera.  (They live on an island with an unfriendly volcano, a host of mad Carnival dancers and islanders and a group of neurotic French

Colonials of the Upper Class.)  In spite of all this, it was very entertaining, the ballet being far and away the best I’ve ever seen in any opera.  (The ballet in the Wells are always far too obtrusive, and stick out from the chorus as being somehow different.  But here it didn’t matter.)  And after a very lushly scored first act (horribly sensuous music, with lots of mysterious off-stage singing) the second act was delightful – a ball, (with Jennifer Vyvyan as the aforementioned brother and sister’s mother – constantly tipsy, and delightfully mad, and consequently very neatly and humorously handled by Williamson.  He seems to have these sort of funny little bits in his operas.  There was a ‘daughter’ in The Growing Castle, who finished up pasting up the whole house with paper, over doors, windows, ceiling, floor – singing ‘I-i-i-i paste, I-i-i-i paste,’ endlessly over an equally endless accompaniment.)  Apart from the very curious story, I enjoyed the opera a good deal, and don’t care what highbrow musos may say: Williamson is definitely contributing something to English opera. (He’s an Australian, by the way.)  Some very interesting effects, too.  The opera opens and closes on the sea – with a rocking boat – halfway between the floor and the ceiling (and a rocking background), and after the first of these two scenes, during an orchestral accompaniment, the sea scene clouds over, and slowly dissolves before your very eyes into a lush bush scene.  Done with gauzes but very effective.  It’s all there in the music, but all they did was turn the red lights up very high with everyone on stage staring blankly off, then total darkness, then a curtain came down with a reddish light slowly growing behind it. 
On Friday afternoon, I had nothing to do, and didn’t feel like working, having reached, once more, a saturation point – or having got musical indigestion as they say here, and so I caught a tube to Blackfriars, since I’d never got on or off there, and walked out along the Embankment to Charing Cross.  As a result I saw a part of London that I must have passed under several times and at a distance (on the river): the Temple.  I’ve been in and out of the Temple station a number of times, but always gone in the opposite direction.  The Temple, strictly speaking, I suppose is a collection of buildings comprising the lawyers’ apartments and rooms.  There are several buildings, of probably mainly last century’s vintage, possibly earlier, but on their river side, is a lovely open part, strictly for the use of members of the Temple.  Dickens, (of course) talks about the area a good deal, along with Lincolns Inn Fields (another law area, particularly for students and young lawyers, I think) which is further north, and has only a semblance of grass still in existence, let alone fields.  Approaching the Temple area from the other side – I think it comes out around Fleet St or Ludgate Hill (Hill?!) [it was nothing like the hills I lived on in Dunedin] (which was so bombed during the war that not a sign of Dickens’ old houses and buildings exist anymore – even a lot of the streets have vanished.  To digress even further, he mentions Commercial Road in one story, where the Opera Centre is now, and how going towards the river it was all slummy etc.  Well, I just noticed the other day that a number of the streets running off C. Rd towards the river are all about thirty yards long with very new buildings and estates cutting off their other ends.  I can only assume that most of this area was bombed too and that the major parts of these streets were destroyed.  An awful lot of the East is suspiciously new. Approaching, as we were, the Temple, you go into some lovely old courts that are, I think much older than Dickens.  And he mentions them too.  There’s even a plaque or memorial in one where David Copperfield, or was it one of the other boys?, is supposed to have stopped for a drink!!  Mike and I were round that way very early in my sojourn, but I must go back and have another look.  The day we were there it rained very heavily, but briefly. 
Can you smell oranges?  I’m in the middle of one at the moment.  They’re fairly cheap here, particularly off the street or market stalls.  I don’t know how these people stand it; they seem to stay right through the winter, out in all weathers.  There must be quite a collection of them, and all ages, because they’re all over London.  Some streets – Petticoat Lane, on Sundays, for example – are taken over by them more or less permanently, and in other places, the original market sites, I guess, still exist and are used.  But it’s really rather funny in Barking Road.  There they have a market right outside a whole collection of modern shops, and will even tell you to go inside if they haven’t what you want!
I’d better finish here – perhaps I’ll send it a little earlier to make sure that it arrives for Christmas – but I’ll definitely write again before then – if the mails will take the stuff!
Lots of love and the very happiest of Christmases, if I don’t get through again before then.  XXXXX
[But wait, there’s more.]
I’ve decided to start another page, because I’d intended all along to tell you about Angelique, and then forgot.  It’s really a farce with music, rather than an opera, or even an operetta. The way they are doing it in this production is as based on the French Music Hall, almost, with everybody very much aware of their audience.  The story is consequently a bit naughty, I suppose, but not crude or anything, as English farce might be.  It opens with a violent piece of orchestral music that doesn’t really go anywhere, although it introduces a theme that is used a good deal in the ensuing number and also once later as

Angelique’s own theme.  The music rushes straight into the opening scene with a crash as two plates hurtle out of Angelique and Boniface’s house.  Then Boniface himself comes running out of the house followed by a very irate Angelique who is telling the world what a terrible husband she has and how she could have had a choice of all the best suitors in the town (a seaside resort).  She is in fact a real harridan, and Boniface is a timid mouse, which is quite obvious in spite of what she says.  Anyway, she belts poor old B over the head with a vase, and he collapses.  She goes inside slamming the door, as two female neighbours look on (and a group of four ‘neighbours’ who appear from four bathing tents at the back emerge) and these delightfully down-to-earth old bags say what a terrible life she (Angelique) leads!  They have a little tune of their own, always the same, which runs into a piece of spoken-in-time-music that invariably leads to their saying they must go and not interfere! (The last time they do this, they are about to carry on into the speaking bit when they are interrupted still with their mouths open by one of the other characters.)  Charlot, a neighbour from across the square appears to comfort Boniface, and during the ensuing conversation they ponder what to do.  Charlot hits on the brilliant plan of selling her, which Boniface gladly agrees to (anything to get rid of her) as long as he (Charlot) can convince Angelique that it is a logical thing.  Charlot then goes and tells Angelique that they’ve decided to sell her and says that she shouldn’t have to put up with Boniface when there are men willing to buy such a beauty as she is – after all, don’t the men of the East buy their women, he says.  Angelique agrees, he vanity mainly having been played upon, and they agree to a signal when a customer is approaching – Beethoven’s Fifth: Tah, tah tah, Taaah!  Charlot meanwhile hangs up a sign saying Wife for sale.  The two neighbours once more appear and comment upon this lamentable wrongdoing!  Charlot appears, whistles, and an Italian appears dancing to a delightfully wrong waltz time.  Angelique begins to sing inside the house and the Italian listens gleefully.  Angelique appears at the window, and the Italian, after serenading her a little, begs her to come down.  She does, and soon he is romanticising about his villa in Southern Italy.  The song resolves into a mad tarantella, with Angelique distinctly at a disadvantage, being swept literally off her feet.  Charlot arrives, and demands the money for her, and the couple dance off.  Boniface appears hopefully, and Charlot hands him the money.  Just as they are rejoicing however, the couple return shouting at the top of their voice and Angelique throws the Italian out, then grabs Boniface and chases him inside.  Charlot puts up the sign again, and the two gossips appear, gradually changing their tune to feeling sorry for Boniface!  Charlot comes back with an Englishman, who talks of buying Angelique as though she were a horse!  How many teeth has she, etc.  Charlot gets Angelique and once more the pattern goes on: this time with a parody of those opera ensembles where several people say they are going to go and never do!  Anyway, they go, and once more Boniface appears even more timidly.  Peace has set in temporarily, because the pair are very soon back, squabbling.  She throws the Englishman out.  Then goes into the house to have a sleep.  Neighbours again, this time in support of Boniface.  A Negro appears and does a shuffling jazzy sort of dance.  Much to Boniface’s horror he runs into the house to see Angelique asleep and comes out in utter bliss – she is unbelievably beautiful.  He goes off to get some money, leaving the conspirators discussing how to get Angelique to accept the Negro.  (He is the King of the Bambaras, whatever that is!)  Charlot gets a shawl to cover Angelique’s face, so that she won’t see the Negro, but tells her that it is because it is the custom of the King’s country.  The Negro returns, and in a quartet tells her how much he loves her, in a lovely quasi-Arabic-African song.  They go off, but naturally soon return arguing.  Angelique dismisses the Negro, and is about to re-enter the house, when Boniface, thoroughly fed-up, tells her to go to the Devil; or more specifically, The Devil take you!  And the Devil appears through a trap-door and takes her off!  When the darkness clears, Boniface is alone, but not for long.  All the irate suitors return demanding their money back; Boniface puts them off temporarily by offering drinks all round, but suddenly the Devil returns, a broken spirit!  Angelique has even caused chaos in Hell, and the Devil begs Boniface to take her back. Boniface, meanwhile, has fetched a rope and is determined to hang himself, but everyone cries not to, especially Angelique, who says she couldn’t bear to see him hang himself because of her.  Celebrations ensue, but just before the curtain falls, Boniface cries out, But she is still for sale! as Angelique doesn’t show any sign of improving. 
Mad, is it not?  But quite a lot of fun.  Lots of love and Happy Christmas. 
 [But wait, there’s even more, this time handwritten.]

P.S. Forgot to mention the Cecil Beaton Exhibition I went to the other day: Friday.  It’s something like 600 of his most famous and best photos set out in periods and groups – actors, musicians, artist, writers etc.  Some are fantastic – the way the character of the subject isn’t only shown by themselves but by their grouping and relation to the ‘props’ around them.  Picasso is one of the most photographed: he appears almost as 3 generations of himself, growing gradually older, and always in surroundings like his paintings.  Marilyn Monroe is there in about 25 studies, only a few really outstanding.  Curiously enough the theatrical ones are less interesting than the non-theatre, because you expect former to be in interesting surroundings, whereas it comes as an original idea to see non-theatricals in slightly outlandish surroundings.
Lots of love
PPS or is it PSS?
Went, with Hazel and Kurt, to the former’s local flea pit picture theatre (after a brief digression to a ‘props’ shop in Cambridge Circus – three floors of theatrical props – fabulous!!) to see two horror films – by way of a complete change!  They were both fairly gory, and both quite unbelievable, unfortunately.  (The first also sported the most idiotic mid-fifties beatnik – boy, was I glad when he was done in!)  Then we went round to Hazel’s flat in Islington for a bite to eat and talked and talked and talked – on everything but music.  I left Kurt at the bus stop, finally, in the middle of a religious discussion (!!) – he’s an atheist – he thinks!  Lots of love.

30/11/68 Oil heaters, actors & fog

30/11/68

Dear Mum, how are you two?  [The letter was addressed to Mrs P Crowl and Fred – the cat, in other words] I got a book the other day called Mozart’s Letters: actually it was only a selection of them, but it’s nice to see that even he wasn’t all that original a letter-writer.  Like me, when he had something to say, he’d go on for quite a time, but otherwise he’s likely to make some excuse about not having enough paper, or no news – he’s always telling his family to send some news! – and what a load of old rubbish he writes at times: especially to his sister or cousin.  Suddenly in the middle of a paragraph he goes quite crazy and writes absolute nonsense!

 

About your Parkinson and Frodsham, I’m afraid I can’t find anything about them anywhere.  Change Alley appears not to exist – I wonder if it was bombed out of existence in the war? – because there’s no reference to it in the A to Z of London, and the name of the firm doesn’t appear in the telephone book, as far as I can see.  I even looked up chronometer makers in the local library’s trade dictionary, but there was only one entry, and that was in st Albans.  Don’t give up hope, however, I’ll ask our receptionist about it when he comes back to work on Monday (he’s had a bad throat) because he’s a mine of information, and may know something about the street at least.  [I don’t remember what this was all about, but certainly Parkinson and Frodsham were chronometer makers going back into the 19^th century at least.  I didn’t realise that Change Alley was short for Exchange Alley, which would have helped me. P & F had offices there, it seems.]

 

On Thursday morning, Kingsley suddenly vanished out of the house before I was even finished breakfast, and not obviously going to school, and I discovered the next morning what he’d been up to  - not having come home till fairly late on Thursday night.  (Got over the cold by the way – stayed home again on Tuesday – just couldn’t face trying to do work, and felt much better for it – got up at midday, and eventually got dressed, and sort of recuperated.)  Back to his lordship – he’d gone and bought an oil heater, saying that he can’t stand trying to sit round the fire any longer – truth to tell I find it just as cool!  I was prepared – in my usual irate fashion – to go crook at him, because he told me it cost £8!!, but he said since it was his idea, he was paying for it.  I can’t see that it’s a great advantage – as it smells oily of course, and trying to dry anything in front of it is a very slow process – you can put a minimal amount of stuff on top of it, but that’s all.  And I’m afraid, as I realise I’ve already said, that it’s no warmer.  I said I’d pay him something for it, but I don’t feel like dragging four quid out of the bank just like that.  Admittedly it’s surely quicker than trying to light the fire, and then waiting around for that to heat up, but at least that was already installed, and all we had to do was buy some coal every so often.  I don’t know what to think, and can’t say anything much as usual, without putting my foot in it.  I don’t know, perhaps I’m an unsatisfactory person to live with.  (I’m sure you’ll disagree, so there’s not much point saying it to you!) [maybe she wouldn’t have done] but I find it hard to say that something isn’t quite to my liking, without feeling sure beforehand that I’ll put my foot in it and cause some sort of upset.  While Kingsley has got a sense of humour (and while mine is rather malicious, I suppose) he is very serious about domestic matters, so to speak, and obviously gets that impression that I’m the type who merely muddles along while he knows how to do most things.  It’s true up to a certain point because he has a real nose for bargains and things, and I invariably wind up getting things for twice the price I need have, and because even though I do muddle along, I get there eventually, even if my discovery of how to do something is the way people have been doing it for a thousand years!  Still, I suppose to a certain degree I’ve got some imagination on my side, (it’ll probably turn up that’s really got a lot of that too!) and maybe that will compensate.  I’m afraid this is a gripe letter, so ignore everything up till now!

Paul Schofield

 

It was good to get back to work on Wednesday, even though I worked too hard when I did get there, because several people inquired how I was and where I’d been, etc, and I felt at home again.  On Thursday, Kevin and I went to see  A Hotel in Amsterdam, the latest John Osborne play – he wrote Look Back in Anger some years ago.  It’s not really a very good play but it has Paul Schofield in the lead, and this makes up for its defects.  He makes even the most uninteresting line worth hearing, merely by the modulation of his voice most of the time, and I would like now to see him in a really good part.  Alec Guinness is in a play revival here at the moment, and I’d very much like to see him, too.  [Don’t think I managed this.]

 

What you say about not believing I’m here most of the time doesn’t apply except on two occasions. (I don’t know why it doesn’t apply, but my mind seems to have accept it all.) These are, invariably when I come out of an underground gents (!) or even sometimes the Tube (don’t ask me why!) I have the funny feeling I’m going to come out in a different place, not necessarily home; and the other occasions are when I see actors on stage that I’ve seen in films – I just don’t believe somehow that they’re actually down there on the platform.  Otherwise, I feel quite at home here most of the time, because the run of the mill person around is exactly the same to look at, except out here in the East, where the majority of men have a very close-cropped hairstyle and a definitive way of dressing – mainly with jeans, and where the women come in two kinds: heavily made-up young ones, with very little beauty about them, or old ones (older) who have gone to seed, so to speak.  This is only the East End lot, the average proper Londoner, rich or poor, is generally a different animal.  [Oh the wondrous generalisations of youth!  Not sure that they improve with age.]

 

Tonight Mike and Hazel and I are making a short trip out of London, down south to Epsom – near Ascot, so they say, to see a production of The Turn of the Screw, the Britten opera based on the Henry James story. Invited Kingsley, but he wants to go and see Figaro at the Wells instead, even though this other is finishing tonight.  You might be interested to know I went to confession this morning, and the priest talked about practicing tolerance, and in your last letter you talked about it, and my one New Year resolution at the beginning of this year was on the same subject – so, if I don’t get to achieve anything at this rate, there must be something wrong.  I’ll have to start another letter if only to tell you a joke I heard in the play

 

Part II

 

There must be some other things to tell you anyway!  This joke was in the Osborne play: a girl went to a very strict convent to become a nun, and one of the vows they had to make was not to speak more than two words every three years. (!)  At the end of the first 3 years the young nun went to the Mother Superior who said, Well now, Sister, you may say your two words, and after a great effort the nun said, ‘Bad food.’  Three more years passed and the time came again. Well now, Sister, you may say your two words: and the young nun said, after a very great effort: ‘Uncomfortable beds.’ Three more years went by, and once again, the young nun came before the Superior.  The Superior repeated her usual speech but this time the young nun didn’t say anything for a very long time, and then finally came out, very quietly with, ‘I want to go home.’ The Mother Superior replied, ‘And a good thing too – you’ve done nothing but complain since you came here.’  And after that great effort, and considerable waste, I’ll leave the rest of this until tomorrow, in case The Turn of the Screw  is very interesting. 

 

[Handwritten] Michael sez thank you for looking after his Mum – re the address, I knew you’d commented it on but didn’t bother to look back and see if you’d actually told me the street!  Kevin’s ex fiancée is AGAIN ENGAGED – which seemed to relieve Kevin on any responsibility for the break-up!! I’ve now received your latest letter re Mike’s Mum and I’ll pass it on.

 

[Typed] What a terrible day it is here!  The fog is the thickest I’ve yet seen here, and everyone gets on the bus coughing and spluttering.  Plus the fact that the tops of the buses are generally full of smoke and if you’re not coughing for a start you soon start!  Fancy asking me if I wanted any more fudge and biscuits!  I’d thought I’d already hinted on this subject as it was – remember I asked if I should send the tin back to you.  I think the reason why it was so difficult to open was simply the fact that it had been stuck down for so long. Perhaps I should send the tin back to you with some books I don’t require any longer – although that might make a rather heavy parcel.  Kingsley had suggested ringing you up at Christmas by getting you to go up to his place, but then as it turned out his family had made some other arrangements, and this is no longer possible.  [Not sure why my mother needed to go to someone else’s place for a phone call, since we had a phone at home.] You’re probably happier anyway, not having to troop up there at that time, but he then said perhaps he could give me a couple of quid for Christmas as compensating!  The boy’s crazy – if I did ring I’d be paying for it.  However, if you don’t mind, I don’t think I will ring – I can’t see that I can say much in two or three minutes and neither could you, and we’d probably both wind up more miserable than we started!  So I thought I’d write you a long letter instead.  Do you mind?  It’s less the expense, than the fact as I’ve said, that we’d probably both be more upset about it than anything.  We’ll see.  And I’ll let you know if anything does come up. [International phone calls were very expensive in those days- I don’t think I actually rang her until around 1970!]

 

Megs Jenkins, in Green for Danger, 1946, 

We went to The Turn of the Screw on Sat.  I had to pick Hazel up from the Opera Centre, and as a result James Robertson, who was also going, gave us a lift to Waterloo Station.  We could have gone the whole way with him, but we had to pick Mike up there.  As it happened, Mike went another way, but I was glad we caught the train really, as Mr Robertson is rather hard going conversation-wise.  When we got to Epsom we were given the most elliptical set of directions and went the wrong way first.  How badly Londoners know their own area!  It was ages before we found someone who directed us correctly.  The show turned out to be an amateur one, and though the singing and playing was fairly good, and the words were excellent, the production was appalling.  Anyway, I enjoyed it to a certain point.  Then the three of us went back to Mike’s flat, and just as we were about to leave, Lindsay arrived in a bit of a flap saying that he had some people coming up.  All he meant was that we should tidy up, but we thought he wanted us to leave.  He didn’t, but we did!  Megs Jenkins, one of my favourite, smaller part players in films came up – she seems to be an especial friend of Lindsay’s.  So it was quite a thrill sort of being on the same floor as her!  I left to get a last bus, but apparently missed it, then discovered as I was about to walk home again that I’d left my keys at my own flat, and as I didn’t really want to wake everyone up at that time of night, went back to Mike and took up his offer of a spare bed!  [Handwritten again; possibly because the shift key seemed to be playing up.]  Then left at about nine next morning, not feeling very bright as I didn’t sleep too well due to the central heating and the electric blanket and the heavy quilt.  I’d intended to go to Petticoat Lane that morning but decided not in case Kingsley had wondered where I’d got to – he hadn’t of course! 

 

Went to Albert Hall (first had tea in Kensington High St) with Kevin but we were both so tired that we nearly went to sleep in the first half seemed to go terribly slowly!  [But what did we go to hear?]

Yesterday was technically a day off (Monday) but I went in anyway and spent so much longer at (the Opera Centre) that I didn’t have time to get home again.  Played the first of the songs I’d written for Kurt, but I’m a bit unsure of what he thought of it!  I’ve made some alterations to it anyway now.  Then we went to the pub next door and he shouted me a drink, and told me most of his life story – interesting but reasonably incredible!  Then Mike shouted me to a Royal Shakespeare play The Latent Heterosexual (what a title!) which was exceptionally well produced and acted (Roy Dotrice of Misleading Cases – he’s only in his forties – was superb in the lead) and nowhere near as bad as the title might imply!

Lots of Love, Mike