18.3.69 - Finally feeling better

18.3.69

Dear Mum, I’m going to answer your first question on the letter I received this morning by saying ‘I feel on top of the world!’ ˗ in fact I feel so much like my old self that I’m leaping around. I’d forgotten just how energetic and cheery I normally am. Either that or I’m going Mad! ˗ I’m bouncing around like a two-year-old so much and chatting away to myself about the world in general (I’ve done that for years) that suddenly it doesn’t matter that it’s never anything but winter in England. Actually the weather has been improving ˗ it’s been that much milder lately, so I’m finding it quite pleasant. No one else seems to think it’s getting any better, but they’re a pack of moaners, the English, I think, and they’ve got so much to grumble about they naturally put something very important like the weather first! I’m now three times as busy as I’ve been ˗ must stop exaggerating! I’ve still got a touch of the cough that I had, but it seems to be vanishing slowly, and no longer bothers me.

We’re in the middle of our last week, practically, of rehearsals for our end of term double bill. I’ve actually got the day off, until 5.30, when we have a rehearsal, but George Bamford (who kept me busy all day Saturday with parts for a terrible Irish recording that is being made soon) has some more film music up his sleeve, and with a bit of luck, I’ll be able to go in later this morning and get it, and do it before and after the rehearsal.

I spent Sunday transposing two songs down for one of the students (who may pay me!) and then went off to see a film at our local cinema, on the other side of the Heath. It was ‘If...’ which I’d been trying to see in the West End for ages, but which had always been sold out at the price I was willing to pay. As it turned out it was a very disturbing film, but I don’t feel for the reasons the director intended. It’s all about a public school, and especially three of the sixth formers, who finally gun down the parents and teachers on Parents’ Day, with old 2nd World War machine guns and grenades that have been in store under the school! But this wasn’t what was disturbing; quite honestly I found the end rather silly, but it was the way all sorts of perversions and deviations from the norm were casually accepted within the film that annoyed me. Morals had vanished out the window, somewhere, and much of the film was taking up with telling you, in a roundabout way, that they had.

The previous night, I’d had to take the parts back to Bamford (he must owe me about £13 or £14 now), and this meant a trip all the way up to Kings Cross, and rather a waste of time, unless I was going to stay in the town. So I walked along to David Gorringe’s flat in Portland Place, which is only several stone’s throws away (!), on the hope that he might be interested in going out, or even just sitting round talking. I was almost put off by the fact that the front door of the flats was locked, but I could see a light on in the penthouse, and didn’t think his flatmate was back yet from an Opera for All Tour, so I chance it and rang the bell, and was answered by a voice thru the speaker at the door. It’s a most odd feeling talking to a disembodied voice in the street!

Anyway Dave was home and feeling all miserable because he didn’t know what to do with himself, and so after a bite to eat (I felt a bit awful about that, I always seem to be having snacks up there ˗ I’ll buy him lunch one of these days at the Centre) we went to the pictures ˗ even though it was getting very late, we got into a later showing of the most recent Ingmar Bergman film, called Shame, and about apathy ˗ I think! It concerned, mainly, two married people (to each other for once!) who during a war in the late 1970s, had taken up a farm to fill in the time when they couldn’t be musicians, and how in spite of the fact that the most terrible things were going on around them, they concerned themselves with their own troubles purely, and were of course shocked when the war suddenly took them over. The man, till nearly the end, when he was forced by a guerilla mob to shoot a high official of the other side, and did it because he was ashamed of his previous cowardice, and that it had turned him against his wife, or vice versa, was a very weak individual who would cry when things got too much for him, and after the shooting, he suddenly changed completely, and his wife who had been dominant up till then, became the weaker and was forced to see her husband turn into a brute. This makes it sound rather curious, but it was a fascinating film. And yet I was trouble rather less by it than by If... And it should have been the other way round.

Last Friday, John Kentish asked me if I could go down to Eltham (two train stops below Blackheath) and play for a rehearsal that night, and on the Monday. Well, I couldn’t do the Friday, but I did do last night, and it turned out they wanted a conductor, not a pianist! (And they pay over £4 for it!) So with some misgiving, I took them thru parts of Traviata, which fortunately I know reasonably well, and really enjoyed it. It was quite like being back with the old Carmen chorus at home, and just the same as far as the atmosphere went. [I presume I mean that I’d been chorus master for a local production of Carmen in Dunedin, but I don’t remember doing this at all.] Only this time I had principals as well: an Aussie leading lady, and an NZ bass (the place is running with them ˗ Sadlers Wells has little else!)  There were even the same types of people there: the woman who didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing, and the men shy of singing, but very hard working. I came home on a cloud! And once I got started they even took my cheek the same as the Dunedin crowd, and took it well, for English [people]! (Sorry to harp on these people, but Londoners can be lacking in a sense of humour ˗ you’re never quite sure if you’re on safe ground!)

 

Tomorrow I’ve got to get up rather earlier than I have the last few days, and go and get tickets for Dance of Death ˗ with Olivier!! Fabulous. [I presume this was the stage production, but since that began in 1967, I may have been talking about the film version from 1969.] I stayed the night at Dave’s on Sat, and then spent some time getting lost in Soho looking for the Catholic Church in there that Abigail and I had gone to on Ash Wed. Soho is easy to go straight thru, but difficult to track anything down in. I found it though and won’t lose it again! I was coming from the opposite direction this time, which was why it was so difficult. Actually I had been trying to find another street when I ran across it! Lots of love, Mike. 

March 1969 - Colds in the head and chest, and an exciting win

10.3.69

Dear Mum, I’ve been meaning to get going on this letter all week, since I received your one about the Linguaphone records, but it has been one hell of a week and I just haven’t got round to it. Anyway, about the records: yes, I did bring them with me, and funnily enough, the day I received your letter I was taking them to Lindsay Campbell, who’d been asking me for them for about a month! Does that put you in a very awkward position? Certainly, as soon as Lindsay is finished with the, I’ll post them out if you’d like. [No idea why my mother wanted these records, which I must have brought over with me from NZ.]

About the Italian and German newspapers, I’m waiting for an opportunity to be in the West End at the time of day when the shops are open. I dare say there are other places, but Piccadilly is the only one I’ve been able to recall seeing foreign papers in. Actually I was there on Friday evening...and forgot!

Well, to bring you up to date on recent events. When I last wrote it was at the end of a day in bed, and I was just thinking that I was getting over that sore throat I had, when blow me down, I suddenly found I was the possessor of another cold! You wouldn’t believe it would you? Colds at home always used to start in the head and go down to my chest. But here they do what they please, and I’ve had them going up and down with great abandon. Anyway I had to go in on Friday (though they sent me home early in the end ˗ not for my sake, but for the singers!) and I thought that perhaps I could get something to knock the cold back, so I went and got some Coldrex tablets (which I wouldn’t normally touch, as they leave me feeling all drugged) and they did the trick eventually, by sort of holding the thing up in my head somewhere, and not letting it run all over the shop. I felt revolting, because I kept feeling as though I was in a permanent dream state, but they seemed to calm the effects of the cold down enough to enable me to go into this last week with some degree of calm. 

However, it left me with a most horrible chest cough ˗ one where the phlegm was so far down in my chest that I couldn’t cough it up. And though I took some cough medicine that someone at the Centre suggested it didn’t help. The same person suggested that I might be getting bronchitis, which gave me scare, as you’d expect, so when I got up to the Crowls on Friday night I said that I thought I’d better see a doctor soon, as the whole thing was worrying me terribly. Reg suggested we get hold of a doctor up here in Palmers Green, and tell him that I was just visiting up there and see if they would do something for me ˗ rather than wait until I could find out where the doctor hangs out in Blackheath. So yesterday morning, he rang up someone and they made an appointment for ten to ten, and I went round and a Lady doctor (it’s always embarrassing that ˗ now I know how it feels for a woman to have a male doctor examining her) listened to my chest and said I didn’t have bronchitis, and gave me some sickly sweet, but bitter, medicine which does seem to be doing some good. At least when I cough now, something dislodges, rather than staying there!

Back to last week ˗ and again, just to keep things in chronological order! On Sat morning, I hired a studio at the Blackheath Conservatoire ˗ like everything else, about two minutes walk ˗ and went in intending to do three hours work on the stuff for the re-audition of the Opera for All that was on the following Monday. However, about three-quarters of the way through my time, I was rung up by John Kentish (our Director of Studies, whatever that means, at the Centre, and a man who doesn’t even recognise me when I meet him round the place!) He wanted to know if I would come up in the afternoon and play Traviata for the people from the Opera Federation which was meeting at the Centre over the weekend. They must sing through the opera while James Robertson takes them thru it and gives them an idea of how it should go. Well, I wasn’t very keen, quite honestly, as I had all the weekend shopping to do, and also still felt rotten with my cold, but when he said the magic words: we’ll pay you, I accepted! (They paid me three guineas in the hand for two hours work ˗ and I didn’t play a good deal of the time! No wonder they don’t make any money. I felt a bit silly throughout, as my eyes were watering, and I couldn’t even concentrate on what I was doing completely.) Anyway, the people from the Opera Fed. Who are out and out amateurs, wouldn’t have worried because they barely seemed to know what they were doing, let alone anyone else.

Went to bed reasonably early on both Sat and Sunday nights, and on Monday morn went to the first Fidelio with the 83-year-old [Otto] Klemperer conducting. Or so they say: to my eyes he appeared to be asleep most of the time. It seems a bit curious to me. I mean, when a man is so old that he can no longer do an even reasonably good job of work, I don’t see the point of his doing it ˗ however great he may have been. Klemperer has been a fine conductor, and perhaps some of the finer details of this production were due to him, but really it seemed more to me that the orchestra was looking after itself, and that the singers were doing likewise. Considering they couldn’t even see his beat, it was so tiny, I don’t see how they could have been following him! I’m told the prompter in the prompt box was really who was keeping the singers together! And it was so slow. [This slowness is confirmed by someone else online.] This is also due to his age, and while some small details, that might normally be overlooked, came to light, the thing fell apart dramatically. I didn’t stay for the second act (though I would have liked to ˗ because in spite of all I’ve said above, there was a curious fascination about it all. The soprano, some of whose singing was like mine ˗ horrifying ˗ had a lot of personality. Again she shouldn’t really be doing the part ˗ she can’t in actual fact sing a lot of it properly ˗ but she does make you watch her) but went back to the Opera Centre to do a bit more work on my audition music. (I don’t know what’s wrong with this typewriter but it’s constantly wrecking the side of this page and tearing it to pieces!)

act of a rehearsal of

The audition was later in the afternoon, and I was first. This time they really listened to us, by contrast with the previous occasion when they had raced through the reps. But in the end it made not much difference, as I didn’t get a job. Robertson called each of the reps into his office the next day, and had a long chat with them. Alistair [Dawes] got the English Opera For All tour, but the other job which was going hasn’t been filled at all for some reason. If Alistair hadn’t got it, I would have been a bit annoyed because he is the one who really deserves it, but I also feel that I could have done it. Anyway, Robertson and I had this talk, and it at least cleared a few things up. From what he says it is worthwhile my continuing in this profession, but he seems to feel that I have some catching up to do ˗ which is what I’d felt all along, because the others have all been doing full time music for so long.

continued on a second aerogram.

The problem is of course, how to do this catching up. He reckons I work very hard ˗ in fact he said he sometimes wonders if I don’t work too hard ˗ good grief! ˗ but as far as I can see, I’ve got to work hard to stay with the others. Isn’t it a problem? I just don’t know where to start to help myself. I’d thought perhaps of going to some small opera house in Germany or somewhere (there is a lot of work there) but it’s a matter of getting there. He suggested I might try teaching for a while but while I don’t fancy it it may do some good, even if it was only part time. I’d thought of some part time work ˗ preferably musical (for example with George Bamford if he’d take me on ˗ he obviously needs an assistant) and filling in the rest of the time with coaching. But here too I’m at a disadvantage, as I only know a limited number of people. I’d thought of going back to Aussie, where at least the standards aren’t quite so high [!], and where perhaps I could get the sort of experience I need to help me cope over here. But as Michael says it’s a long way away from the mainstream of things and it wouldn’t be worthwhile going back there unless I definitely had some work. And unless they’d take me on my Opera Centre background, I’d probably have to go all the way out there to audition or something. AAAAAAgh! (excuse me!) Whatever happens I’ll have to start getting onto people soon, and get something underway before the next term is too far advanced. So there we are.

On Wednesday, the Tauber competition was to take place in Wigmore Hall, and so Abigail [Ryan] and I went along, and found that we were something like eleventh on the list, out of twelve. What a long wait. From where we were it sounded as though Abigail didn’t stand a chance, the voices seemed to be so good, and when we did go on, I don’t really think she sang all that well. Anyway, after everyone was finished we went down into the hall, and waited with a whole pile of Abigail’s relations who had made an occasion of it and come down from Manchester. There was her mother, a lovely plump homely woman with the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen, and her aunt (whom I later found out was likely to burst into an old Music Hall song on the slightest pretext) and her two sisters, Mary (who was mad as a snake and three months pregnant)  and Vera, a rather more straight-laced girl, but still very friendly. And there was also Tommy her brother, a tall, balding very gentle man.

Eventually the judges came out and of course the hall was electric. They then announced after considerable spiel, that though there had been many lovely voices there this afternoon, the aim of the prize (a year in Vienna studying at the Academy with all expenses paid) was to help someone with potential to develop, and the prize therefore went to Abigail Ryan. Well, you’ve never seen anything like it. Abigail was by this time sitting with her sisters and aunt, while I was with her mother and her flatmate, a middle-aged spinster of American origin, and her young friend, an Anglican girl doctor (who practises in Wood Green ˗ I thought she might have turned out to be the lady doctor I was to have yesterday) who has recently come out of a convent where she spent 18 months before deciding it wasn’t for her.

Abigail’s mother gave me a kiss and a hug (which nearly made me vanish from sight) then rushed over and hugged the American woman (Miriam is her name) and meanwhile Abigail had stood up, sat down again, been clapped, stood up again, tried to get out of the row she was in, walked briskly up the aisle to fin there was no way to get up on stage (!) walked round through the connecting doors and arrived on stage looking considerably confused, and there she was presented with a large bouquet of flowers, and congratulated by the judges and photographed by a funny little man who suddenly appeared from nowhere. I think we were all as excited as she was.

I was terribly pleased, especially as when I had been sitting down at first and Abigail had gone off to talk to someone (this was before the announcement) some idiot German woman behind me had been spouting off in a know-all fashion about this Abigail saying she shouldn’t be singing dramatic soprano, as though she was a specimen of some sort, and she had got a bit of a shock when she recognised the accompanist was sitting right in front of her ˗ I hope she got even more of a shock when the winner was announced. These people who have all the knowledge of the world tucked away in their brains annoy me not a little. [Possibly the pot calling the kettle black, I suspect.]

Naturally this all called for a celebration. I was the first to arrive backstage ˗ and Abigail gives me a big kiss ˗ in front of all the dignitaries and officials and judges. They didn’t seem to mind, and I can’t say I did either. Anyway, we all (family and friends) went off to the pub down the road, and stayed there for about an hour ˗ filling the air with laughter at a whole lot of in-Catholic jokes: the whole family is Catholic of course. And they’re terribly friendly people, and terribly funny. We all went off after this (we’d picked up another one of the students by this time, David Harrison, who’d just come into a whole lot of money and insisted on paying for things left right and centre ˗ the evening cost me practically nothing ˗ though I did try to pay ˗ and with him in tow, nine of us (Miriam had left by then) went to a restaurant called the La Laguna, near the Coliseum [Theatre], and took over the basement section. We must have been a bit noisy, as there were some other people there originally!) Then they went to another pub, and just sat, and then we all went to Miriam and Abigail’s flat in St John’s Wood (by tube) and stayed there for a while, watching a foggy TV picture (it starred the man all the women had seen in a musical in the West End the previous night and they’d all fallen in love with him) and playing some songs on the piano.

I left quite early as I still had a hectic couple of days to follow. I had to play for 5 of the singers auditioning at the Wells on Friday, and we were told on Thursday that instead of only having to sing one song each they should have two prepared, so this meant a whole lot of last minute work. I can’t say I felt particularly happy about any of the playing I did, and anyway, we all think that the whole business was merely a courtesy thing because the Wells always used to audition the singers that were leaving the Centre and had stopped doing this last year.

Yesterday, Reg and I went down to Southend, because in the last few days the sun has come back to us (we’ve hardly seen it all winter ˗ it’s horrible). We spent about four hours wandering around ˗ it’s a resort, of sorts, because it’s actually on the Thames estuary ˗ tho this is very wide. (They call it Southend-on-Mud!) It has the longest pier ˗ a mile ˗ and at the end of it are restaurants, cafes, theatres, etc. It’s quite a thing ˗ with even an electric railway running its length.

With a bit of luck the fresh air may have done some good ˗ 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?]