23.9.67 - haircut and last letter from Sydney

23.9.67 Sydney

Re above date: just got a very overdue letter (dated 13/9/67) which had come via Manhattan. [The hotel, not the island.] And me mother was very sarcastic about putting on the dates!

Well, this will be the last letter you get before I arrive home; you’ll already know about my coming because I’ve just sent you a telegram. Am going to stay with Marge – have a feeling Glenda’s rather booked up – there’s 3 of them staying there just now. So I’ll be spending another night in danger of being eaten alive (with love) by Judy. [Marge’s dog.]

Spent most of yesterday in town. Incidentally heard from Pikler who was very sorry to say he couldn’t be of any help – I think he was a wee bit nonplussed when I didn’t sound put-down. I’m rather relieved in a way. Things could have got very complicated if I’d stayed on here. I’ down to my last $10!

ANZAC War Memorial

Went to the Museum yesterday, but since it’s mainly a natural history one I wasn’t madly enthused – I’d much rather see animals alive than stuffed. Then went into Hyde Park which is just across the road and watched some elderly men playing chess and draughts on little tables with the squares already marked out. The great big War Memorial is there too.

Then went and had a haircut. Well -----!!! When I came out I must have smelt as though I’d been dunked in a perfume-cum-hair-oil barrel. [These were the days when NZ men were men – as far as haircuts went. You went to the barber for your short back and sides and no frills, thank you.]

First he thoroughly wet my hair, then he razor-cut a lot of it (and scissored) then he cottonwoolled on some lather round the edges and razored that very precisely, then he stuck some rather stinging stuff on, then he dried it all again. Then he talcum-powdered (!) round the edge, then he oiled it a bit --- YUKK! And when he’d finished (80c later) it looked much the same as ever! Still, I at least felt that I’d got my 80c worth! [2018: The prices in these letters seem extraordinarily low…now.]

After this I decided to get something for Anne and the kids and during the course of this I so lost you wouldn’t believe it. Not that it was as bad as in the cemetery, but I’d go into an arcade and come out at a different angel, then have to go to a corner to find which street I was in, then have try and figure out whether I was above or below such and such another street, then I’d got into another arcade and come out in a tiny little street that led back to where I started!  AAAGH!!!

In the end I got Anne some flowers; they’ll arrive on Monday; what a job to think of something she’d like. Still, they’re always acceptable, I think. [2018: I don’t think I paid her anything for staying with her for a week or so…such is the ignorance of youth. This youth, anyway.] I got Chris a couple of packets of stamps – one mixed and the other a set of cats from Poland. They’re delightful. And I got Jenny a pretty pink vase – she’s quite keen on china and whatnots.

Then home exhausted.

Watched 2 films (in a row) last nite: one called Dragonwyck, about Gene Tierney who goes to act as governess for Vincent Price in a huge mansion, then later marries him when his first wife dies. Supposed to be very horrific, but only that in about 2 places when a supposed ghost sings and plays on a harpsichord – but only a certain number of people hear her. Well done, though.

The other was Life Begins at 8.30, about an elderly actor who has taken to drink (Monty Woolley) and whose daughter (Ida Lupino) is torn between him and Cornel Wilde (a composer, again!). It was very funny, in spots, very warm, very human (!) But quite well done. [Not sure what the point of the italics are in that last sentence…] Originally based on an Emlyn Williams play, but I don’t think there was much left of it. I also had the uncanny feeling of having seen it before – but the name doesn’t mean anything. Certain scenes and shots looked surprisingly familiar.

So, lots of love until I see yuh,

Mike (xxx to Fred). 

This is the last letter in the series. 

21.9.67 - Lost in the cemetery

Sydney 21.9

Oh, dear

MICHAEL FRUSTRATED CROWL will be my name from now on.

At long last I got something positive from the Ballet – and even then it was at second hand (via Anne). No go – well, I’m afraid that I feel rather relieved about that – Ballet’s not really my line and since even the Ballet dancers would have known the music better than me, I think it might have been a little risky. [This is bit of nonsense, of course; no ballet dancers, any more than opera singers, know all the music of all the repertoire.] So, I’m not over-worried about that. More relieved than anything to have something positive at long last. That’s not where the frustration bit comes in!

Rookwood Mortuary Station - not when I was there!

Decided to go out to Rookwood Cemetery this afternoon. So via Cecil and the Caretaker (on the This is my father’s burial number.] Well, clever Michael decides to go and find it, disregarding the fact the everyone sez Rockwood’s a big place. I should have asked the Caretaker exactly where section 17 was, but I assumed that at least they’d be in some sort of order. [2018: Shades of the Aussie library systems. LOL.]

phone) I got hold of the number of the grave: Sect 17, No 3486, believe it or not. [

Well, I got a through train from Wollstonecraft (at Northwood end) to Lidcombe, which took me nearly an hour, so that it was about 4.15 by the time I got there. [I remember this trip: mile after mile of suburbia passing by, a sight I wasn’t to see again until I reached London.] I had planned to get back to Northwood for tea! Well, I went into the cemetery, (which is just down the road from Lidcombe Station) and found section 13 sitting right there. But apart from a section 5, everything else was labelled A, or G, or EE! I discovered later that this was the old part of the cemetery. Well, I trekked around for a while and finally asked a lady in a house that was sitting right in the middle of this bit if she knew where sect. 17 was? She didn’t! So after losing myself thoroughly in this place I finally came upon a sign saying ‘Catholic’ – this was the new part, I presume, though some of the stones had been there for years. To my joy (it was now about 5.15!) I saw some small name-plates that looked like the thing I wanted. But these only went up to 1050 or so. I then went right round that area and found every section (18, 16, 20, 14, 15, 10 *!!!) but the one I wanted. And there was absolutely no reason to it all. So if ever I get the chance again I’ll try again. 

But I wasn’t finished yet. I took the road that I thought I’d come up, but all it would do was insist on taking me in a completely unfamiliar direction. As far as the eye could see there were graves, or bits of unrecognisable countryside. You’ve no idea what an odd feeling it is to be completely and utterly lost (I couldn’t find one of the churches I’d seen on the way in) in a cemetery just before sunset.

Fortunately, a car came tootling around the road I was on, and I waved them down and asked how to get to the station, explaining that I’d got lost on the way through. They very kindly pointed out the direction and were about to drive off when they realised I didn’t have a car. So they gave me a lift to the station which had somehow transplanted itself a good two miles away from where it had been before.

AAAAGH!! Why don’t they put up some sort of signs of where sections are, etc? Of course, by the time I got to the Catholic Office in the grounds everyone had gone home.

So when I got to the station, I rang up Anne and said I couldn’t make it home for tea and get to Rigoletto, (it was now 10 to 6) so I decided to have tea in town (which didn’t bother her a bit) and meet her at the theatre.

Went to the Poet and Peasant for tea, again, and then onto the Tivoli. [2018: in the previous notes I added that this was ‘the theatre’. Curiously enough, according to Wikipedia, the Tivoli stopped presenting shows in 1966, and was demolished in 1969. But this page says the production was definitely presented there. In fact, it looks as though all the operas I mention were performed there that year.] Went to my usual seat beside the tympani player only to find that the harpist (who wasn’t playing) and his girlfriend had already arranged to be there. So in the end, I wandered upstairs and sat in a chair in one of the boxes that no one seemed to want! [2018: Quite extraordinary to think that I could go into the theatre unchallenged like this each time.]

Quite a good show, though only the baritone (as Rigoletto) was really good. Somehow feel that the NZ Opera version was rather better all round. (Bias!!) [The NZ Opera version, presented in the heyday of their existence, was firstly designed by Raymond Boyce. This meant that in the middle of the duet between Rigoletto and Gilda, in the second act, the wall hiding the garden from view suddenly shifted forward as the two singers went through the gate, turning the whole scene into the garden.* Boyce used the same effect in Porgy and Bess, going from the outside to the inside of the house in the middle of the storm scene. Hardly a new idea, but very effective in its timing in both instances. As well, I managed to see both performances of the opera in Dunedin, by being an usher, and, because it was really my first experience of the opera, I was overwhelmed by it. I don’t remember who played the role of Rigoletto in the first performance, but it was sung by Lucas Bunt on the second night, a gentleman I was to have more than a little to do with while touring with him around NZ as part of the Opera Quartet. I may be wrong, but I think three other members of the first Quartet I toured with, Ray Opie, the tenor, Corinne Bridge, the mezzo, and Kathleen Johnson, the soprano, were also in at least one of the casts. I don’t remember a thing about this Australian Rigoletto, but in at least one of the performances I saw in London- it may have been that memorable first night that I arrived there – the baritone pitched a note he sings on his own a semitone flat, and when the orchestra came in, something Verdi never wrote persisted for quite a number of bars.]

Got another letter from you, Hurray!!!

So, see yuh, Love Mike

* You can see a sketch of one of the sets built for Rigoletto here. The picture is copyright, so I can't reproduce it.

20.9.67 - The waiting game

Sydney 20.9.67

Hullo, me old friend,

Well, things go along very slowly here – everyone seems to think I’m here to stay and can afford to sit round and wait for them all. Haven’t heard anymore from Krug and Co yet – they’re the slowest of the lot.

Went to see Robert Pikler yesterday; was supposed to have lunch with him, but he was even too busy to do that; he was very kind and helpful – the way everyone is, here (for a start, anyway), and he promised to ring one person at the University who is a conductor there, and also to see the chief coach at the Con and also the Opera School Head, there. Since he’s on the inside, he may be able to do something for me. He sez there are two people there who do nothing but coaching of singers and he reckons they’re both flat out. (They might like to stay that way – since neither is on a salary, but a commission basis.) Anyway, I’ve got to ring him back, or he’ll ring me; something or other, before the week’s out. This means I’ll have to stay till the end of this week at least; awkward, isn’t it. I wouldn’t mind if I was assured of work, but this sitting around waiting all the time rather gets me down. But there’s little I can do, I think. [2018: There’s a considerable lack of gratitude here, considering how generous all these people were. Perhaps Krug and even Pikler thought I wasn’t interested enough in work and didn’t pursue things further.]

I’ve spent most of this morning ironing shirts and hankies. Did a big wash yesterday, now that I was able to get some soap powder. Used to wash me sox in the hotel and leave them in the bathroom to dry – it was always so hot in there, they’d generally dry overnight. Discovered yesterday that I still had one of the keys to my hotel room! Dropped it into them while I was in seeing Pikler.

Watched an odd movie on TV last nite – All the Brothers were Valiant (felt as though I’d seen it before, too) – it had Robert Taylor, Ann Blyth, Stewart Granger and Betta St John in it. (The latter is the wife of the guy who came out to do Fledermaus last year.) [Peter Grant, who also appeared in a few movies.] It was a pretty weird story, but it did have one very good sequence where they were catching a whale – though the whole thing was done in the studio, it was extremely well done – certainly the best thing in it.

It’s a gorgeous day today – lovely warm sun – it’s in the 60s, I think.

I’m still ploughing slowly through my German, but I think I’m progressing. Anne, who spent a year in Vienna, asked me something in it last night – and I didn’t understand a word – so I’m still very much a beginner.

That seems to be all just now, so see ya, Love, Mike

16.9.67 - I move to Northwood

Northwood, Sydney 16.9.67

Dear Mother,

Shifted out of the Grand Hotel today – thank goodness – any longer there would have ruined me. Got out to Anne’s and since she was going out to do the shopping, stayed in and talked to Christopher.

Though it wasn’t much of a day, Chris and I went to Luna Park, (Jenny was already going out for the afternoon) which was not nearly as big a place as I expected. However, we enjoyed it, and Chris is fortunately not the sort of kid who likes going on the really hectic things – Ferris Wheels, Big Dippers, etc. Though we did go on three things in a row which resulted in my feeling knock-kneed and dizzy, and several other things besides, but I survived the walk home from the station – which is about a mile and a half from here, and a lot of it uphill.

Sat up and watched The Window on TV – it finished about 10.15 – in fact I was going to watch another movie but decided not to; it’s about a little boy (Bobby Driscoll, who was the voice of Peter Pan, a bit later) who sees a murder, but no one believes him because he’s a tall story teller at the best of times. Arthur Kennedy and Ruth Roman were his disbelieving daddy and mommy. Very good. They have an incredible number of movies on TV here. (Of course, there’s four channels.) But I reckon, I could stay home and see a movie every night with ease, and probably two. What a life! [In those days, new movies were worth seeing, and Mum and I had gone regularly, week after week, to a five o’clock Friday session to see a new film, from the time I was quite young. When I was able to pay my way, I’d often go to more than one in a day, or a weekend, and if there was a Film Festival on, I could wind up seeing more.]

LATER Mary Williams, (the cellist) has been out for the afternoon and we three went wandering all round the suburb, in the sun; Anne pointing out various interesting things.

Watched Hole in the Head on TV, a Frank Capra, of the 50s, with Frank Sinatra, Edward G Robinson, Eleanor Parker, Thelma Ritter, etc. Marvellous.

Anne’s house is very nice – she’s apparently re-done it, in a lot of ways – modernised it slightly etc. She’s got quite a bit of furniture that she brought from England, some of it very old (it belonged to her mother before her). And she has a couple of Renoir prints and an old original (not by anyone famous) dated 1611 (!) in her lounge.

[In the original letter there is a drawn plan of the house.] As usual everything here is a little out of proportion, but I dare say you get the picture. It’s not really as big a house as it looks either, I suppose it would be about the same size as our place, perhaps a trifle smaller. [Which must means that the rooms are very small, since there are four bedrooms in the plan.]

This doesn’t seem much of a letter for 2 days, but I don’t seem to have done much. Got to ring Aussie Trust again today – so, we’ll see what happens. Supposed to see Pikler for lunch tomorrow – don’t know that he’ll be of much use, now, since I’ve already been to the Con where he works. We’ll see. How’s Fred? [the cat] Love, Anyway, Mike.

15.9.67 - Not listening to good advice

Sydney 15.9.67 (Noon)

Pencil economy! Not really – just haven’t a pen. Hullo! Have recovered my usual buoyant sense of humour (probably as a result of enjoying Fiddler so much, and because it’s so warm, and because I’m going quite well with my German – if I can keep it up.)

It’s a funny sort of day. Sort of diffused – if you know what I mean – there’s a haze over the city, but the sun is filtering through – and my left arm is feeling, and looking, rather burnt. I’m sitting in one of about a dozen parks (small) in KC, just down the road from the Hotel. These parks (even the very smallest) seem to have fountains and trees and shrubs, and there are any number of seats – in fact there are seats all over the city, and parks!

[back in ink again]

LATER Got a letter from me mother! Hurray! I laughed at it all the way up in the lift (otherwise empty) and along the corridor and into my room. Looks like I’d better take my umbrella into town with me tonight – it’s been raining most of the afternoon – should be okay – the repair job seems to be all right.

MICHAEL CROWL – MUSICAL DIRECTOR, No, no. MUSICAL DIRECTOR ----! That’s totally funny – I’d probably be awfully inept at it. [Not sure what the reference here is; probably my mother trying to cheer me up. 2018: anyway, I’d done musical directing in various ways before I’d gone to Oz, so I’m not quite sure why I found it so funny.]

I’m going to ring the Trust in about half an hour and see if I can get some satisfaction. Hope that today I’ll know what the future will be. I haven’t gone anywhere much for the last couple of days; it’s been sort of frustrating to have to sit round and wait like this. Can’t even book me flight home. And I’ll have to go easy on the old pocketbook, too, if I’ve got to stay on a bit longer. Anyway, I’m determined to come home with something left over. I would have had a lot more if the Hotel bill had been what I expected. (Don’t be surprised if every now and then you find nouns with capital letters in the middle of a sentence. In German all nouns have capitals and the ones that I know in German I’m inclined to put down with a capital! Silly, isn’t it?)

I’ve spent most of this arvo in the little library round the road reading Tobias and the Angel, a comedy on the Bible story, by James Bridie. The Aussies don’t seem to be able to put books in order. It’s awfully hard trying to find anything in the 2 libraries I’ve so far been in. The Main one in town has only a vague order. Nothing is alphabetical as far as I can see, so how they ever find anything! [Still griping about libraries 25 years later.]

LATER I’m really beginning to think that I need a business manager or something – I, myself, must be handling things wrongly – or something! Just rang the Trust, again, and now we’ve got to wait till Mr Krug gets himself moving re the Ballet Co. He’s their conductor. (P. Schwartz apparently stayed in Sth America or somewhere obscure – how odd!) [Peter Schwartz was a chain-smoking Austrian conductor who’d made his home in NZ; he was involved in the Summer Schools in Dunedin where I met him, where he was very encouraging in terms of my accompanying. I hadn’t heard of him since for years until I became involved in the brass band movement, and there he was conducting a band as one of the many strings to his bow. 2018: I wonder if I intended the wordplay/pun?] So they were going to wait till Tuesday, but I said that my time was limited (so it is; I’m fed up with waiting around for them) and so I’ve got to ring them on Monday at lunchtime. Heavens, they do muck around, don’t they! They must surely know whether they’ve got room for an extra pianist, or not – their excuse, according to the (not so) charming Miss Swan is that they’ve got people dotted all over the country just now. Marvellous!

I don’t know what to do about Pikler, now. Doubt if he can do much at this stage, and anyway, the place he’s mainly concerned with is the Conservatorium, and I’ve been there! And that other fellow that Cecil introduced me to, John Hammond, reckoned if he were in my shoes he’d get a job, any job, just to be on the spot. [A sound piece of advice which I obviously wasn’t hearing.] I’m inclined to think I’ll get as much musical experience back home – (where I’m obviously appreciated – heh, heh) and where I won’t have to pa out exorbitant amounts for lodgings. Look out, I’m going to scream – [printed very large:] AAAAGH!

That feels a lot better.

Courtesy Creative Commons

Better go, got all me packing to do tonite – go to Anne’s tomorrow. Mary Williams, who was also in Fledermaus, a cellist (whose flat Claude and I went to for tea, remember?) is coming over for the afternoon, on Sunday, so we can have quite a chat. [Claude was a genuine Frenchman [2018 I’m not sure why I wrote ‘genuine’], a clarinettist. There was some relationship between him and Mary but I’ve no idea how serious it was. I seem to recall Claude mooning around after a fairly disinterested Mary. My one other great memory of Claude, who was an excellent clarinettist, is that he couldn’t get a single note out of a clarinet I owned, and which I took on tour with me round NZ, and could actually play!] My poor old left arm’s burnt nearly through, while the right is only red.

Oh, well, see ya, love Mike.

10.9.67 Mass, lunch and the beach

10.9.67 [Sunday]

St Candice interior, courtesy Sydneyorgan.com

Hi! Went to Mass this morning at St Canice’s which is about 3 blocks away and tried to mumble my way through. The trouble is, the Aussies, in typical fashion, have simplified a good deal of the language and so we got, ‘The Lord be with you’ – ‘And with you’ (!) (which incidentally, is much better because it cuts out the emphasis on ‘And with Your spirit’ which is wrong. If anything, it should be, ‘And with your spirit.’ 

Anyway, I got there and then went and had a read of me ‘Annals’ and Catholic Weekly in the Fitzroy Gardens (where the El Alamein Fountain is – there’s a TV ad for raincoats with it in) which are just round the corner from the Manhattan. [The Annals Australasia – journal of Catholic culture, I think this might be.]

Then rang Anne Newbury, as she had suggested, and she invited me out for the afternoon. By this time there was a message from Cecil to ring him, which I did, and which took a considerably longer time than expected due to the slow, slow way he seems to talk and think. He finds he and his wife are all booked up this week, so they may have me out next Sunday. So it looks as though I’ll be here till at least next weekend (the money will last!) because I’ve got to ring Pikler then too. [The money barely lasted – I arrived in NZ with so little cash I had to borrow some money off Marge Quinn in Christchurch to get the train home to Dunedin. Marge was a former workmate of my mother, and we used her home as base before and after the Oz trip.]

Went out to Anne’s via the subway (after walking into town) which was another new experience. Some of the carriages here are double-deckers like the buses; I went in one (upstairs) on the way back tonite. That train goes over the Breedge (!) which was also interesting. [Me being rude about the Sydney accent.] Anne picked me up at the station and took me to her place, where I met Christopher (9) and Jenny (11). 

We had lunch in the sun, (a terrific day today) and then went for a ride to the beach (not Bondi, but beginning with B.), where we walked back and forth for quite a little while; even did some paddling (me – with me Sunday suit on – but I’d left me coat and tie at Anne’s.) It was really lovely in the sun, and think I’m getting a bit red in the face – it’s about time: I’ve been out in the sun enough lately. Stayed for tea, too, at Anne’s, and we watched TV – mainly a Disneyland on D Duck. Some of their programmes, in spite of the fact that they’ve got 4 channels, are behind ours – there was the beginning of that new Dean Martin show, for example. And they’ve still got the Underwater puppet show, and don’t seem to have heard of Thunderbirds! So!! [Anne was separated from her husband – she and I had met on the Die Fledermaus tour, when the Australian Opera orchestra was bought over to play, and had got on very well. She played oboe, if I remember rightly.]

Well, tomorrow, is the big day – and I’ll be glad when it’s over – I don’t really think I’ve been particularly relaxed all the time I’ve been here.

I’ve got another lunch date with Cecil tomorrow, and then back to the Trust for the (gulp!) audition!

So, see ya, Mike

Undated - Free seat at the opera

It's a bit hard to tell where this letter fits in. Possibly I wrote two on one day, since the next one in the list is actually dated the 10th Sept. However, the information in this letter seems to indicate that it was certainly around the 10th or 11th.

Undated, but postmarked 11 Sept 67 

Dear Mother, How are You? I am fine! Long hot day here in Sydney, so having nothing really to do , I went to the T. P. Zoo. [Presume this is the Taronga Zoo – was it called the Taronga Park Zoo at one point?] And got so lost that I kept finding bits I hadn’t even realized existed. It’s a marvellous place, isn’t it? Snakes – UGH! Giraffes – oooh! (One baby there, but he just sat.) Some peculiar little animal that stopped and talked to me (everyone reckoned he was an opossum, but he was in with the wallabies). A cockatoo that nearly burst my ear drums with his ‘hullo,’ and two others that fell quite in love with me and wouldn’t leave. Very friendly crowd of animals there – there – they nearly all  had time to stop and chat! And a very good aquarium with some of the oddest and most beautiful fish I’ve seen. Who said op-art was a new thing? God gave it to fishes centuries ago!

It’s a ferry-trip, of course – or didn’t you know – I never know where you’ve been in S. and where you haven’t; and the ferry goes round the Opera House, still being completed, but surprisingly beautiful., and looked on as an attraction by even the most mundane of Sydneyites.

AMP Building

Went up to the top of the AMP building to top off the afternoon. It’s 25 storeys high (no 13 isn’t used except as an air-conditioning plant!) and the lift gets there in about 5 secs flat. I had to make 2 trips to pick up some of the things I’d left behind (stomach, heart, etc). And the view naturally is stupendous!

Surprisingly enough that just about filled in the day, and I’m off to tea in a minute. I’ll try a restaurant in Kings Cross tonite; went to the Continental (?) Café in one of the thousand arcades late nite – very nice too. So, see ya.

Jack’s mail arrived – somewhere along the line it’s been dipped in something pink! and every letter including Grahame’s reference has got blodged in some part. Looks like I’ll just have to wait and see whether it’s necessary to use that or not. [I’m unclear as to who this Jack is – Grahame may have been Grahame Clifford with whom I’d worked both as an accompanist in Dunedin when he was teaching there, and again in Wellington when he and I went on the Die Fledermaus tour together, and became even closer friends. He’d been one of the top baritone singers at Covent Garden in his day, and had originally come to Dunedin with a D’Oyly Carte tour, playing the comic patter roles. When he ‘retired’ he thought Dunedin would be a good place to live. Unfortunately he was never truly appreciated there.]

Had tea in a place I won’t go to again. Wouldn’t even give me a serviette! Couldn’t quite tell what the excuse was but the girl said, ‘We don’t…serviettes’?? So I was none the wiser nor cleaner by the time I’d finished the meal.

I’d rung Anne Newbury this morning and she suggested that since there were NO seats available for any part of the opera season – it’s been sold out for months!! – why not come along and see if I could get in behind the percussion players in one of the side boxes to see it – ‘it’ being Turandot. Well, I met her (and also quite a few others from Fledermaus) [the others being some of the orchestra members from Fledermaus; the NZ Opera Co had used Sydney orchestral players for some reason] and we found that there was simply NO room behind the percussion players, because they had every conceivable instrument in there already. So they suggested I go upstairs and stand at the back. Well, I tried that, but was told at least 3 times by a fussy usher that the fireman would growl, so I headed off at the end of the 1^st Act, and discovered quite by chance (or good management on the part of the guardian angel) that there was room in the side box in the gods. And after the first act two people moved out so I was free to take either seat. And what a sound it was. The view wasn’t much – everyone looked like a dwarf (!) – but I was between the stage and the orchestra practically and got the best of both! Marvellous. 

Grahame Clifford, presumably as the
Modern Major-General.

The production wasn’t anything remarkable, but the singing except for one or two spots was wonderful – and the chorus was terrifically full-blooded. The woman who played Turandot (who doesn’t come on till the 2^nd Act) arrived with a cloak that must have been 24ft long (!) made up (the cloak!) to be a peacock (of sorts) and it was spread all the way down a flight of stairs by her handmaids. And her costumes were terrific! Thousands of beads and glittering things. Heaven knows how she stood up in it all. [The stairway, one of those typical ‘inspirations’ by the designer, took up most of the stage, and while it was great for such effects as already described, it left little room round the sides for the large chorus, and the principals. Consequently, a lot had to be done on the stairway.]

Went round to see Feist afterwards for a brief visit, and he sez he’ll probably be there on Monday (!!) Oh well. [Bob Feist, the conductor of Die Fledermaus, who was by then working for this season in Sydney. An American conductor, with some eccentricities. He and I had our moments, in rehearsals, mostly because I wasn’t as familiar with Fledermaus as he expected I should somehow be. I also played the glockenspiel in the performances, a fairly thankless task since the part is not large – but they had to do something justify taking me around New Zealand. A good deal of some performances was spent reading The Hobbit by the light of the orchestral lamp. I seem to remember that I also played the triangle in the overture, and I certainly played the glockenspiel as the ‘sound’ of Grahame Clifford playing on the bars of the prison cell.]

So, must go to bed. See ya, love Mike.