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.

25.6.69 - Aussie composer & Alwin Nikolais

27.6.69

Dear Mum, (started the same day as the previous letter) I started this off for some reason because I’d left something out and John arrived with 2 friends and I’ve forgotten what it was. (Quarter of an hour later) I’m now doing some more copying of James Robertson’s (incidentally he got the C.B.E!!!) edition of the parts of Schicchi ˗ in other words his idea of those things that are better, or different to Puccini’s! What I’d forgotten: recently, two of the students at the Centre here got me to play through some songs that they’re performing at Australia House. They’ve been composed by an Australian woman, and while, it seems to me, the actual vocal parts are quite pleasant and would make good pop songs (in fact I think she’d make a lot of money that way!) the accompaniments are absurd! Her idea to make them modern ˗ and her idea of modernity is to put quite wrong notes and harmonies all over the place which instead of making them exciting as she no doubt intends only make them difficult for the singer and make it appear that the accompanist is playing wrong chords! And yet these are to be performed. It makes me scared of ever putting anything before the public. Though I think at least that I have slightly more idea of what I want to do, and aim for that. [After all this pontificating, I fail to mention who the composer was. Disappointing!]

Know thyself is never more applicable than in the creative or entertainment business ˗ do what you can do and don’t try and be your next-door-neighbour! Jeff said this once too ˗ that everyone is given a certain talent and should know what that is and use it to its fullest extent. His father, he said, told him that no one is better than anyone else ˗ and it has certainly given Jeff plenty of confidence! Jeff is definitely the most down-to-earth tenor I’ve known, even though the fact that he is a tenor weighs a little against him (I’m very rude, I’m afraid), but he has his feet fairly firmly on the ground, and says not so much what he thinks, but what he knows ˗ Hmm, what a curious ramble this is!

(Next day.) I’ve just stood thru a performance given by the Alwin Nikolais Dance Group, at the old Sadlers Wells theatre. The music, or perhaps it should be, the sound, consisted of electronic noises, some giving quite a definitive rhythm, some seeming to do nothing but ramble. The opening piece was done by five dancers (whether the dancers were men or women throughout made no difference, except in one of the longer pieces) each holding two suction-like devices with which they performed. During the whole evening no one specifically ‘danced,’ but intertwined. The next piece had three dancers inside sack-like affairs, with no apparent opening, but made of such a material that they went slack or expanded as the person moved about inside. Then there was a solo, and then the entire group of ten tripped across the stage holding two streamers each which were attached to the side they entered from, and then performed in and around and on and under these streamers, which were again sufficiently pliable to be sat on at one stage.

[Part II]

These first four items seemed purely of an entertaining variety, but the second section of the programme consisted of a long piece entitled, Tent and which consisted of the group coming on with another of these pliable materials, this time a large circular affair which had a hole in its centre big enough for all the dancers to stand in at once. After some preliminaries, several balls with some sort of attachments about a yard below them descended and somehow picked up certain spots of the ‘tent’ so that it could be raised from the outside or the central circle. And this was done without any apparent assistance from those on stage ˗ but the attachments were strong enough to allow the dancers to play and pull at both the balls and the tent at different times. From then on the group seemed to represent humanity and the tent some sort of constantly intervening oppression which would overtake them and force them down and cause them to change or start again.

(Next day ˗ the last lot was written in the train, so that’s the reason for then handwriting being even more illegible than ever!) During the course of the dance an eternal triangle, with a man and two women, kept forming itself, but just as part of the detail of what else went on. I think it would probably need a second viewing to really get a lot more from it. The last ballet was a piece taken from an act of an apparently full-length ballet called Vaudeville and had the entire group, again, this time dressed in red and purple costumes and each with metal props consisting of a two-legged affair joined in two places, or perhaps it was three ˗ once across the top and yes, I think, twice further down, like this. [Drawing of something with two uprights and three cross pieces included.] These they used as gates, fences, doors, beds, you name it! Finally they built a house with it, which in the course of a ‘storm’ (?) blew up! All through this piece they’d suddenly stop when the music stopped, all prance (as only dancers can) to the front of the stage, and all talk at once to the audience. The whole thing was quite hysterical!

There was one girl who was ‘different’ from everyone else ˗ she took bigger skips (?) and this upset all the others quite a lot. It was a very funny and yet also a very disturbing piece, though perhaps not as much as the middle ballet had been.

I’m just now reading a book on Verdi, by a man called Frank Walker, and he has set out to clear up all the spurious facts surrounding Verdi’s life by the use of lots and lots of letters. There’s very little about his music ˗ it concentrates on the people involved. All the other biographies I’ve read have been semi-fictional and bad. This one keeps on referring to them and saying, ‘Tut, tut, tut’, ‘so and so’ always gets the facts wrong!! [This book was The Man Verdi, published 1963,by a man who’d spent his career as a talent agent. It's no longer in print, but can be downloaded here in various formats.]

Love Mike.

22.6.69: Berlioz, radio and TV

22.6.69

Dear Mum, I’m still wending my happy way thru all your birthday presents and probably won’t have any teeth left by the time I’m finished! Didn’t I tell you that I did usher in St Paul’s? Actually I didn’t really usher, I just stood at the door and collected tickets and told people where to go. The concerts themselves were a little disappointing. Because St Paul’s is little more than one great echo chamber, only the people right at the front could get a satisfactory effect; although apparently it recorded very well. I stood at the back on both nights and consequently heard much of it as a not very remarkable blur. The most thrilling moment was, as it had been at home in Christchurch, when the ten tympani players and the four different groups of brass players (scattered all over St Pauls) all played at once in that massive Dies Irae section in the Requiem. St Paul’s, for all that it stood up to the bombing of the last war, was actually trembling! Not the most pleasant of effects ˗ with the feeling that rather a large number of tons of masonry might be about to descend on your head at any moment!

How are all the invalids? Give my love to them all ˗ a bit belatedly, I’m afraid. I’ve been wracking my brains to try and remember if you actually said what was wrong with Mary and I don’t know if you did. I seem to remember something about it’s being similar to your operation ˗ but am I right or not?

I have the Verdi Requiem playing rather loudly in my ear at the moment (the other was the Berlioz) ˗ it never ceases to amaze me just how beautiful it is. I did some coaching with a mezzo on it earlier this year, and like it all the more each time I hear it.

I’ve been writing some more music, recently. I find it gets something out of my system, and though it would be nice to have some of it performed eventually, that particular aspect of it doesn’t greatly bother me.

The other evening David, Hazel and I walked down to Victoria thru St James Park to see a film, and on the way back (after we’d played on the by-then-deserted swings and see-saws in the Park!) we were strolling along frightening each other when 2 guys who were coming towards us suddenly stopped in front of us, and poked 2 white, long objects at us! After the initial shock I realised they were only rolled-up newspapers (!) but it was worrying for a moment. Anyway they were trying to find someone who had belted one of them on the head, for heaven’s sake! They went off muttering, as we were obviously very harmless. There seemed to be a lot of bodies wandering around the Park (and this was about 11.30) and I certainly would never go in there alone at that time of night.

We’ve had Scottish TV down over the last week filming round the place and generally being a nuisance. I’m in two scenes, one of which they should use, with me seated at a piano waiting for a rehearsal to start, and also in the Italian lesson, which they’ll probably cut. Also, I forgot to tell you I was interviewed recently for the overseas transmission which should turn up at home eventually! If they don’t cut what I said right down. I felt surprisingly calm about it all, mainly because I got so little warning, I think! I’m also playing in the background of another rehearsal they recorded, so you never know ˗ I might be heard yet, love Mike.  

27.1.69 Flat-hunting, Verdi, and Schoenberg

27.1.69

Dear Mum, how our fortunes change within the space of hours almost! It seems an age since I last wrote though I know it’s not, and equally, the last week seems to have been one of the longest (and funnily enough also the shortest) I’ve ever known. Sorry about this curious start: explains: When I last wrote it was a happily confidant little lad who thought that the subject of the flat was all settled. However David Syrus decided that he was really better off where he was and so left me with a whole flat to myself. I tried Kurt Gänzl, because I knew he wasn’t too well off, flat-wise, but he had other complications and that wrecked that idea. I asked another guy too, but he has complications too. 

So! what to do? I really didn’t and still don’t feel like moving, despite the disadvantages of this place, and I feel in a bit of a mess. Today I thought that well, it could turn out for the best and so I went off to the place that I’d gone to before, to see what they could turn up for me. I’d also discussed the problem with Reg over the weekend and he’d said he’d get onto his contacts and see what might turn up. I tried two places tonight; the same young man who served me before was my aid again, and even gave me a lift up to Stamford Hill, where the first place was. He’s a very pleasant bloke: his landlady is a New Zealander (!); and he lives up that way anyway. The first place (I’m looking for a bedsit) was a very small room with only a gas ring to cook on, and utensils consisting of three different knives, up on the second floor of a house, and while it may have been quite cosy, it didn’t seem to be me. The bloke, his name is Atkins (his first name begins with A too, but the only thing that comes to mind is Arty, and that doesn’t seem right) then gave me a lift down to Seven Sisters Road, where I then walked up to the next place. This was a basement room in another large house, but there were no utensils there and the electricity included was only the lighting. It also looked cold, but the room was larger, and the woman who was fairly deaf, seemed anti-everything. So neither of those seemed much good. I was able however to get a bus right to the door of this place from there which was some consolation, but my hints to Mr and Mrs Marshall that I’d like to stay but couldn’t afford the rent came to nothing  – though they were very sympathetic and seemed to think they’d be as sorry to lose me as I would be to go!

Went out to ring Reg, who incidentally had a cyst taken off his eyelid today, about the same time as I was doing my audition for Opera for All, which seemed to go reasonably well – I was happy anyway, tho I don’t really know what they thought. He hadn’t been able to do anything from his end because his phone had gone on the blink! However he’s not giving up.

When I came back from ringing him, Mr M came up the stairs and said would I like to stay on £4 a week until I could find someone to share the place! I said that that was very nice, thank you, but I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to manage to stay on, as I didn’t see much hope of getting anyone to share the place. (I wonder if I should advertise? for someone, I mean?) Mr M said well, they didn’t expect me to be tied down to staying on, and he seemed to not mind if I went off after having only paid him that much for a time so that is something anyway. But I don’t know if it puts me in an awkward spot or not! But it’s nice to know I’m a reasonable sort of tenant anyway! That’s a review of the situation up to date.

On the weekend I went up to the Crowls and they had been given tickets to an amateur performance of an opera by Verdi, which is never done: Luisa Miller. Maurice Coombs supplied the tickets – we went to his place on Boxing Day – and it turned out his wife Phyllis was in the chorus – she’s Mavis and Nina’s little sister (about 45!). The production and acting and even a lot of the musical performance was very amateur – these people should see some of our local stuff [ie, productions in Dunedin] – they’d never believe it – but Verdi shone through everything in sight. He can’t be put down, that man. Even when the singers seem incapable of doing the thing properly or with the proper amount of passion, the fact that they had to sing it at all made them do it at least half-way decently. His music is fabulous, and it was a treat to hear something really unknown to me.

We’ve had fabulous weather here the last few days: it’s actually been in the fifties! [I assume this is a Fahrenheit temperature, since this was mid-winter, though even 50 degrees Fahrenheit hardly seems anything to crow about.] And very mild. People are going around without coats even. Overcoats, I mean. (Although I saw one fellow in shirt-sleeves and one idiot in his singlet!)

Jane Manning

During the last week I went to a performance of modern works: arrangements by Berg and Webern (the former’s life story I’ve just finished) and a performance of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, first without reciter, so that we could just hear the music, and then with reciter – Jane Manning, who was also in The Growing Castle a while back. This person doesn’t sing, but speaks on the notes written down; the effect can be fantastic, and can also be less impressive than either speech or singing. She was super-excellent, anyway, ploughing her way thru some horribly difficult things with ease. And so did the chamber ensemble. I had a score of the Lunaire, so knew just how difficult some of it was. Most of it, in fact.

For the record, at my audition, I played a chunk of Boheme, tho not all I intended, and a duet (between Anna and Ottavio) [from Don Giovanni] but they didn’t let me finish that either. and because they were pressed for time, I didn’t play the piano piece I’d prepared. The sightreading was from Verdi’s Falstaff, and seemed to me to be easy, but perhaps I was mistaken!

Last Wednesday we went to a general rehearsal of the last act of the Meistersingers, but it seemed only partially good. the Sadlers Wells version had seemed just as good, in fact. On Thursday Mike got us into a premiere of Buona Sera Mrs Campbell, a very funny and rather moving comedy, with Gina Lollobrigida, and several other very good actors.