3.10.69
Dear Mum,
I haven’t heard any more from you about your state of health, but I won’t send
this until tomorrow by which time perhaps another letter may have arrived. It
seems unlikely that anything disastrous has happened to you ˗ apart from perhaps
turning a few more shades of the spectrum, just for variety’s sake (chameleon
Crowl!) ˗ otherwise no doubt I would have heard from someone. I suspect you’re
up to your old tricks again, and have been organising games evenings, and Bingo
parties and races up and down the ward (handicap for those in wheelchairs?).
Anyway, seriously, I do hope you’re well onto the recovery list and don’t
intend going back to that hospital again, however much you may enjoy yourself
while you are there!
I had two
days off at the beginning of the week, as I have a feeling I already told you,
and on the second evening, on David’s suggestion, I went down to Covent Garden
and stood outside to see if I could get a seat that was being returned; people
often sell them directly on the street it seems when someone has decided not to
come or can’t. I picked up a seat in the lower slips which is on the side of
the horseshoe that the auditorium consists of. It means that you have to lean
forward all night in order to see, and that you can’t always see the side of
the stage that you’re actually on, but it has the advantage of being over the
orchestra, and consequently you can hear every note that is sung, and see the
people’s faces. This last is quite something, because when you sit in the back
of the amphitheatre, where at least you can see all the stage, you can barely
see what sort of expression people have on their faces.
 |
| Peter Glossop |
For the
first time I enjoyed the singing of Peter Glossop, who always makes a beautiful
sound but doesn’t seem to put any heart in it. It would seem however, that you
need to be that much closer to him to appreciate just what he is doing. [Covent Garden was a huge space for singers to
fill, after all, especially over the top of an orchestra, but Glossop had an illustrious career there for all that.]
The opera
was The Trojans again (this time with
everything in its proper sequence) and it really is a fabulous piece. Even
though the first act goes on for an hour and a half, and the second (in the
Garden’s arrangement of it) for over another hour and the last for about 52
minutes. You’re never bored with it ˗ it has tremendous variety, even though
this has the tendency not to make it all of a piece; it seems to work, for me
anyway.
From
where I was sitting I could see the six harps (!) that were positioned in one
of the boxes on the lowest level opposite. They are used (in the most original
idea practically, in the opera) as accompaniment to the women of Troy who are
singing a song of defiance against the men who’ve come out of the horse. Harps
don’t sound quite like the thing for defiant music, but the tremendous buoyancy
of the song, and the snatches of wind and strings with it, make ia really foot
thumping piece.
Heather Begg is in the opera, in a fairly large minor role, and does it fairly well I
think, though David has some objections to make about the way she sings the
lower notes which are too low for her comfortably I’m sure. [Heather Begg was a NZ mezzo, who toured
in Die Fledermaus with the NZ Opera Company, when I worked as a repetiteur on
the production.]
The woman
playing Dido, Josephine Veasey, was indisposed on Tuesday, and we had Janet
Baker singing the role ˗ in English, with everybody else doing it in French. It
was only due to the sheer expertise and sincerity of everybody that it came off
˗ and I rather think I prefer Baker; she has exactly the right sort of voice
for it, though no doubt Veasey will grow into the part, and eventually manage
to sing it as well as Baker now does. The latter did it in Scotland for
Scottish Opera, who were actually the first to do the thing complete anywhere,
even though it was in English.
Peter,
David’s brother, came up to see it and stayed on for the last couple of days. He’s
hitching back this morning.
I’ve had a bit of a raw throat over the last day or
so, so I registered myself with the local Jewish doctor this morning, and he’s
given me some penicillin tablets to take. He was very overriding in the nicest
possible way ˗ I also asked if there was anything could be done to prevent my
colds, and he said there was nothing could be done, and that it was all fairy
tales that there was any sort of preventive! He was fairly pleasant though,
otherwise. The only thing I can do about colds I think is to make sure I eat
well. Did I tell you I went back to the Centre the other day, and had a meal
there? It was tremendously gluey, and not very filling somehow. I think I cook
as well. Anyway, I’m eating satisfactorily all the time, so we’ll see how we cope.
I thought I should see about this throat though before it went any further ˗ I left
it so long last time, remember, and was barely able to breathe in the end. [I’m not sure if this is referring to
something that happened in England, or to the time when I was touring with the
NZ Opera and conked out for over a day as the result of a throat infection.
Some of the other members of the orchestra came looking for me at my boarding
house because they were so worried when I didn’t turn up for a performance.]
Moneywise
things are going well took, because apart from the money that is owed me (the
agents for the last flat have only just sent me a cheque for our deposit ˗ two
months after we left!, and after a considerable number of phone calls and
letters from me. They’re so pathetic and unbusinesslike). I was paid nearly
thirteen pounds for last week, even though I was only there three days ˗ true, I
did work from ten in the morning till eleven at night each day, but I didn’t
expect that it would be much above my basic wage. Life itself has been rather complex
lately, and I’ve spent this week trying to sort out my love affairs! With a bit
of luck I’ll know where I stand next week, so I may be able to elaborate a bit
on the subject then. Anyway, get well, lots of love, Mike.
P.S. Got
your being better letter. What on earth did they do to your throat? Keep up the good work anyway. [If memory serves me right the doctors had to
cut into her throat for some reason, and after that she claimed she could never
sing, something she’d always done around the house.]
