A production of Leonard Bernstein's CANDIDE that was to have opened at La Scala next June has been cancelled.
The full story is from today's INDEPENDENT...

Opera as you've never seen it: La Scala cancels controversial 'Candide'

By Peter Popham

Published: 30 December 2006

I think the coming year is going to be good for me...I've just finished decorating my new flat (got a grant from the Council for decorating), and will be moving in over the next week.  Meanwhile, I'm staying in a lovely house, cat-sitting (Sunny, a sweet and affectionate tortoiseshell).
I couldn't wish for a better flat, or a better location...and I have a bigger garden than before...well, it's a large patio, with space for all my pots, AND of course I've been able to install the famous COMPOST BIN!! Into which I am concientiously placing all my kitchen and garden waste.

The only drawback is that I will be making far fewer visits to the OPERA, as I have NO MONEY!!

Weaving drunkenly through the streets of Covent Garden.....is this coherent, or even legible??!!!
Met some opera cronies in the Marquis of Anglesey....two glasses of rose, nothing to eat,..lovely conversation about Thomas Hampson, now trying to sober up with strong black coffee!!

Things are improving!!! FINALLY managed to get the gas sorted out, but it took TWO DAYS!! Cost untold amounts in phone calls, which I will probably have to repay to Goldsmiths College.........
Anyway, now I have gas and electricity....
I have a cooker, and I HOPE the guy is finally coming to install it on Sunday....
And I have a bed......
And now I have started painting....got a very generous grant from Camden Council for decorating!!
AND a much bigger garden than I had before...if anyone's been following the developments since June, you may recall that I asked to be rehoused by the Council because my  landlady was harassing me because of the compost bin....well, in fact she's done me a favour.
Yesterday I put some COMPOST in my COMPOST BIN!

Grumpy old bat whines about privatisation....
was Mrs. Thatcher the most evil woman who ever lived??!!!

GRRRR!!!

Well, I got the keys today!!  Now the problems REALLY start!! Sorting out gas and electricity, buying furniture - I booked the removal van for Saturday, still haven't really finished packing at the old flat!!
Suppose it will be worth it eventually!

Election results announced
24th Nov 2006

Siân Berry and Dr Derek Wall elected as Principal Speakers

A wonderful Website that I would like to share with you!!!
http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/

Full of ideas for giving TIME or CARE, or for creating gifts that mean something...I just love it!!!

Isn't moving a TOTAL PAIN??!!! Of course, I'm absolutely delighted that I've got the council flat AT LAST, but the preparations......
I am beginning to wonder whether I will have everythng ready and packed in time. It's the books, mainly.....haven't even STARTED on the kitchen!!

Does everyone else find moving a pain?
One thing, the council are giving me a decorating grant! looking forward to painting it......

Anna Russell, who performed that wonderful parody of Wagner's RING, had died. Here is a link to the obituary in the New York Times (I haven't seen any obits in UK or European papers yet, but apparently her death has also been reported in the Australian press.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/obituaries/20russell.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

"I'm not making this up, you know!"

My favourite lines from her RING parody.

I planted a blueberry bush today!
Of course, it doesn't look like this yet....
will re-post in about a year's time!!

I'm so pleased....I've been subjected to a lot of harassment by my landlady, and obviously Camden Council have finally decided that it's serious enough to warrant moving me up the list! It's a ground floor flat in West Hampstead, where I used to live about 15 years ago. And there's a patio for my plants and the compost bin, which is what the harassment was about.....
can't believe it's really happened! So quickly.....usually it takes months.

Introduction The idea for this ecosocialist manifesto was jointly launched by Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy, at a September, 2001, workshop on ecology and socialism held at Vincennes, near Paris. We all suffer from a chronic case of Gramsci's paradox, of living in a time whose old order is dying (and taking civilization with it) while the new one does not seem able to be born. But at least it can be announced. The deepest shadow that hangs over us is neither terror, environmental collapse, nor global recession. It is the internalized fatalism that holds there is no possible alternative to capital’s world order. And so we wished to set an example of a kind of speech that deliberately negates the current mood of anxious compromise and passive acquiescence. This manifesto nevertheless lacks the audacity of that of 1848, for ecosocialism is not yet a spectre, nor is it grounded in any concrete party or movement. It is only a line of reasoning, based on a reading of the present crisis and the necessary conditions for overcoming it. We make no claims of omniscience. Far from it, our goal is to invite dialogue, debate, emendation, above all, a sense of how this notion can be further realized. Innumerable points of resistance arise spontaneously across the chaotic ecumene of global capital. Many are immanently ecosocialist in content. How can these be gathered? Can we envision an "ecosocialist international?" Can the spectre be brought into being?

Manifesto
The twenty-first century opens on a catastrophic note, with an unprecedented degree of ecological breakdown and a chaotic world order beset with terror and clusters of low-grade, disintegrative warfare that spread like gangrene across great swathes of the planet--viz., central Africa, the Middle East, Northwestern South America--and reverberate throughout the nations. In our view, the crises of ecology and those of societal breakdown are profoundly interrelated and should be seen as different manifestations of the same structural forces.

The former broadly stems from rampant industrialization that overwhelms the earth's capacity to buffer and contain ecological destabilization. The latter stems from the form of imperialism known as globalization, with its disintegrative effects on societies that stand in its path. Moreover, these underlying forces are essentially different aspects of the same drive, which must be identified as the central dynamic that moves the whole: the expansion of the world capitalist system.

We reject all euphemisms or propagandistic softening of the brutality of this regime: all greenwashing of its ecological costs, all mystification of the human costs under the names of democracy and human rights. We insist instead upon looking at capital from the standpoint of what it has really done. Acting on nature and its ecological balance, the regime, with its imperative to constantly expand profitability, exposes ecosystems to destabilizing pollutants, fragments habitats that have evolved over aeons to allow the flourishing of organisms, squanders resources, and reduces the sensuous vitality of nature to the cold exchangeability required for the accumulation of capital. From the side of humanity, with its requirements for self-determination, community, and a meaningful existence, capital reduces the majority of the world's people to a mere reservoir of labor power while discarding much of the remainder as useless nuisances. It has invaded and undermined the integrity of communities through its global mass culture of consumerism and depoliticization. It has expanded disparities in wealth and power to levels unprecedented in human history. It has worked hand in glove with a network of corrupt and subservient client states whose local elites carry out the work of repression while sparing the center of its opprobrium. And it has set going a network of transtatal organizations under the overall supervision of the Western powers and the superpower United States, to undermine the autonomy of the periphery and bind it into indebtedness while maintaining a huge military apparatus to enforce compliance to the capitalist center We believe that the present capitalist system cannot regulate, much less overcome, the crises it has set going. It cannot solve the ecological crisis because to do so requires setting limits upon accumulation—an unacceptable option for a system predicated upon the rule: Grow or Die! And it cannot solve the crisis posed by terror and other forms of violent rebellion because to do so would mean abandoning the logic of empire, which would impose unacceptable limits on growth and the whole “way of life” sustained by empire. Its only remaining option is to resort to brutal force, thereby increasing alienation and sowing the seed of further terrorism . . . and further counter-terrorism, evolving into a new and malignant variation of fascism. In sum, the capitalist world system is historically bankrupt. It has become an empire unable to adapt, whose very gigantism exposes its underlying weakness. It is, in the language of ecology, profoundly unsustainable, and must be changed fundamentally, nay, replaced, if there is to be a future worth living. Thus the stark choice once posed by Rosa Luxemburg returns: Socialism or Barbarism!, where the face of the latter now reflects the imprint of the intervening century and assumes the countenance of ecocatastrophe, terror counterterror, and their fascist degeneration.

But why socialism, why revive this word seemingly consigned to the rubbish-heap of history by the failings of its twentieth century interpretations? For this reason only: that however beaten down and unrealized, the notion of socialism still stands for the supersession of capital. If capital is to be overcome, a task now given the urgency of the survival of civilization itself, the outcome will perforce be “socialist, for that is the term which signifies the breakthrough into a post-capitalist society. If we say that capital is radically unsustainable and breaks down into the barbarism outlined above, then we are also saying that we need to build a “socialism” capable of overcoming the crises capital has set going. And if socialisms past have failed to do so, then it is our obligation, if we choose against submitting to a barbarous end, to struggle for one that succeeds. And just as barbarism has changed in a manner reflective of the century since Luxemburg enunciated her fateful alternative, so too, must the name, and the reality, of a socialism become adequate for this time.

It is for these reasons that we choose to name our interpretation of socialism as an ecosocialism, and dedicate ourselves to its realization.
Why Ecosocialism?
We see ecosocialism not as the denial but as the realization of the “first-epoch” socialisms of the twentieth century, in the context of the ecological crisis. Like them, it builds on the insight that capital is objectified past labor, and grounds itself in the free development of all producers, or to use another way of saying this, an undoing of the separation of the producers from the means of production. We understand that this goal was not able to be implemented by first-epoch socialism, for reasons too complex to take up here, except to summarize as various effects of underdevelopment in the context of hostility by existing capitalist powers. This conjuncture had numerous deleterious effects on existing socialisms, chiefly, the denial of internal democracy along with an emulation of capitalist productivism, and led eventually to the collapse of these societies and the ruin of their natural environments. Ecosocialism retains the emancipatory goals of first-epoch socialism, and rejects both the attenuated, reformist aims of social democracy and the the productivist structures of the bureaucratic variations of socialism. It insists, rather, upon redefining both the path and the goal of socialist production in an ecological framework. It does so specifically in respect to the “limits on growth” essential for the sustainability of society. These are embraced, not however, in the sense of imposing scarcity, hardship and repression. The goal, rather, is a transformation of needs, and a profound shift toward the qualitative dimension and away from the quantitative. From the standpoint of commodity production, this translates into a valorization of use-values over exchange-values—a project of far-reaching significance grounded in immediate economic activity.

The generalization of ecological production under socialist conditions can provide the ground for the overcoming of the present crises. A society of freely associated producers does not stop at its own democratization. It must, rather, insist on the freeing of all beings as its ground and goal. It overcomes thereby the imperialist impulse both subjectively and objectively. In realizing such a goal, it struggles to overcome all forms of domination, including, especially, those of gender and race. And it surpasses the conditions leading to fundamentalist distortions and their terrorist manifestions. In sum, a world society is posited in a degree of ecological harmony with nature unthinkable under present conditions. A practical outcome of these tendencies would be expressed, for example, in a withering away of the dependency upon fossil fuels integral to industrial capitalism. And this in turn can provide the material point of release of the lands subjugated by oil imperialism, while enabling the containment of global warming, along with other afflictions of the ecological crisis.

No one can read these prescriptions without thinking, first, of how many practical and theoretical questions they raise, and second and more dishearteningly, of how remote they are from the present configuration of the world, both as this is anchored in institutions and as it is registered in consciousness. We need not elaborate these points, which should be instantly recognizable to all. But we would insist that they be taken in their proper perspective. Our project is neither to lay out every step of this way nor to yield to the adversary because of the preponderance of power he holds. It is, rather, to develop the logic of a sufficient and necessary transformation of the current order, and to begin developing the intermediate steps towards this goal. We do so in order to think more deeply into these possibilities, and at the same moment, begin the work of drawing together with all those of like mind. If there is any merit in these arguments, then it must be the case that similar thoughts, and practices to realize these thoughts, will be coordinatively germinating at innumerable points around the world. Ecosocialism will be international, and universal, or it will be nothing. The crises of our time can and must be seen as revolutionary opportunities, which it is our obligation to affirm and bring into existence.

Joel Kovel and Michael Lowy

Paris, Sept 2001

GADAFFI: A LIVING MYTH
English National Opera, Saturday, 9th September 2006

Music: Steve Chandra Savale/Asian Dub Foundation
Text: Shan Khan
Director: David Freeman
Designer: Es Devlin
Lighting Director: Wolfgang Goebbel

There is a certain air of Edinburgh Fringe about the project - worthy, well-intentioned, had its good points, which I have attempted to delineate. I also attended the pre-performance discussion, at which the point was made that the work was an attempt to attract audience that would not usually go to the opera. They certainly succeeded in that aim! But will all these young Asians come back for LA TRAVIATA at the end of
September? I certainly hope so.
It works the other way too, as an audience member observed during the discussion - 'normal' opera-lovers (are any opera-lovers normal??) would probably never have thought of going to GADAFFI had it been performed at an 'ordinary' theatre (though I might have gone if it had been in Edinburgh), and we did have to leave some of our pre-conceptions at the
door.
Dr. Jane Susanna ENNIS
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

This is a terrible story...she must have had a really bad relationship with her family, if not one of her 10 children and 30 grandchildren had stayed in touch.....

Inquiry into starved woman's care

Ivy Allen had refused offers of help
A review is under way into the care of vulnerable people after a 79-year-old grandmother starved to death.

Mother-of-ten Ivy Allen was found emaciated on her sofa, with no food in her Warrington home, an inquest heard.

Ms Allen's pension had been returned because her front door did not have a letterbox, the coroner was told. He criticised the "lack of mindfulness" by the authorities. Warrington Council said lessons could be learned by the "sad, tragic and complicated case".

Ms Allen died from gross malnutrition as result of natural causes, including self-neglect, the coroner ruled. Recording his verdict, coroner Nicholas Rheinberg said: "It is a summation of a lack of mindfulness of those undertaking their duties as they saw fit."

He added: "The biggest single failing was one of communication." It was a combination of lapses and no intervention that led to this tragedy
Nicholas Rheinberg
coroner
Ms Allen, who has 30 grandchildren, had told hospital doctors she could not afford to feed herself, but social services were not told this when she was discharged.

Pension cheques had been returned because the council had replaced Ms Allen's broken front door with a back door, which did not have a post box. But no-one was sent round to check on her, the coroner heard, and her pension was eventually suspended.

The court heard Ms Allen had a history of psychiatric problems and was often confused and resentful of offers of help. But no community psychiatric nurse had checked on her health.

'Working together'

The coroner concluded: "It was a combination of lapses and no intervention that led to this tragedy."

Ms Allen rarely cooked for herself, leaving her bungalow each morning for the cafes and pubs of Warrington town centre, and not returning until night.

The council had tried to install a post-box at her home, but gave up because she was never in.

Coroner Rheinberg said the agencies had "perhaps not gone as far as they could have done or should have done in discharging their duties".

Warrington Council spokesman Bob Williams said: "This has been a very sad, tragic and complicated case, one from which all those involved can learn.

"In the light of the coroner's comments, the council, the primary care trust, the Five Boroughs Partnership, Warrington Hospital, Golden Gates Housing and the Department for Work and Pensions will be working together to review the procedures currently in place to address the needs of vulnerable people in our community."

Just LOVE this pose!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/el_fer/229897553/

Just forwarded this from THE GUARDIAN - what an amazing story!!!

Director vanishes after spat with conductor at the Royal Opera House
Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent
Wednesday September 6, 2006
The Guardian

Opera has a distinguished history of strops, hissy fits, temper tantrums - a whole spectrum of diva-ish behaviours and hostility covered by the wonderfully euphemistic phrase "artistic differences".
It remains unusual, however, for a director to walk out on the first day of rehearsals and go to ground - which is what has happened at the Royal Opera House.

A new production of La Finta Giardiniera, written by Mozart when he was aged 18, is due to open there on September 21, directed by the German-born Christof Loy and conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. It is a problematic opera, very long in its original form, and usually requires cuts to make it workable.

Article continues

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to Sir John Eliot - who has had a reputation for a sometimes abrasive manner - "Christof Loy was not willing to discuss any of the cuts. I was certainly prepared to discuss them, but at the end of the first day of rehearsals he walked out, disappeared, went awol, and no one could find him."
Loy's agent in Austria was unavailable to comment on this version of the disagreement. Sir John Eliot said the dispute turned on the fact that Loy had expected the cuts to be the same as those he had worked on directing the production in Germany. As conductor, however, Sir John Eliot expected that he would, in consultation with the singers and director, suggest the cuts. "It is the music director's job," he said.

"On the first day of music rehearsals I suggested to him that we should look at the cuts, saying that I had new ideas and I didn't want to solidify them until I had worked with the singers. Then we had two rehearsals, which he sat in on. At the end, I said to the singers, 'These are provisional cuts, if you have any comments let me know.' At which point Loy leaped up and said, 'Are you cutting me out completely?' I said, 'Can we discuss it afterwards?' He walked out; I assumed he'd wait outside and we'd have a beer and talk about it. But he had dropped off the ends of the earth ... it's not very edifying."

The opera will now be directed by Loy's assistant Annika Haller, who, said Sir John Eliot, has not worked on the production before.

He said there was now "an excellent cast and a good working atmosphere".

It was from Loy's 2004 revival of Ariadne Auf Naxos that soprano Deborah Voigt was famously sacked by the Opera House, for being too overweight to fit into the little black dress required.

Singer Astrid Varnay died on 4th. September 2006. The montage photo shows her in some of her greatest roles.
Astrid Varnay. I have downloaded a biography of her.

Biography

Having spent Monday morning enjoying the recital by Simon Keenlyside and Malcolm Martineau, in the evening I went to the Usher Hall to hear Bostridge and Pappano....
It's impossible to say which I preferred. Keenlyside's programme was perhaps a little more varied, while Bostridge and Pappano gave a recital of Schubert in the first part, and Wolf after the interval.
Pappano has always been one of my favourite conductors, and he is a wonderful pianist too! Superb musicianship from both performers. The Schubert songs were a selection from SCHWANENGESANG _ I especially loved the performance of
STAENDCHEN, which is such a tender, yearning song, and the final song of the selection, ABSCHIED, in which the sadness behind this superficially "jolly" song was conveyed more effectively than I've ever heard it before.
( I later went to an interview with Bostridge in which he confirmed my feeling that there is a great deal of sadness in the sub-text of this song, and that was what he wanted to convey).
The Wolf songs were eight Moerike settings, followed by five Eichendorff settings. From the Moerike settings I would single out BEGEGNUNG for special praise - it's a not very serious song about the aftermath of a
storm, during which a young lad meets his girlfriend and asks if she's tidied her hair after "it got tangled during the storm". Bostridge sang with charm and lightness of phrasing, while the piano part effortlessly
conveys a sense of haste, and the slight embarassment on the part of the young people...it was really enchanting. And I loved the smooth, legato phrasing of UM MITTERNACHT.
As their final encore, they performed the song about the poet who kicks the critic downstairs...I can't remember the exact title, but you probably know the one I mean. When the intruder gets kicked downstairs, the music goes into a parody of a Viennese waltz, first the voice, then a spectacular finale by the piano - a truly wonderful ending to a memorable evening!!
Dr. Jane Susanna ENNIS
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

Wonderful news - a Left tendency within the Green Party. Read the LAUNCH STATEMENT...I especially like the reference to William Morris!!

Launch statement of Green Left
Green Left has been launched as a network for socialists and other radicals in the Green Party of England and Wales. It will act as an outreach body that will communicate the party's radical policies to socialists and other anti-capitalists outside the party.

The time has come for drawing together forces that can present a serious challenge to the disastrous neo-liberal project. We believe that 'another world is possible', based on ecological and socialist values. In conclusion, Green Left would work to enable you to live in a society based on peace, ecological balance, economic equality and inclusion. Come and join us!

Just back from Italy - one of the best places we visited was the Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico) in Pisa...it's the oldest Botanic Garden in Europe. (Chelsea Physic garden is modelled on it). One of the things I especially liked about it was that some of the trees are really ancient and you can SIT IN THE SHADE! The graphics are:
(i) Herb Garden
(ii) Peony
(iii) Arboretum

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5243582.stm

An obituary from the Guardian. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, one of the most renowned sopranos of the immediate post-war generation, has died at the age of 90.

As most people are doubtless aware, today is the 1st. anniversary of the London bus and tube bombings. There was a two-minute silence at midday, and I was in Russell Square at the time, so was able to join many other mourners (including representatives of the community such as the Mayor of Camden) round an oak sapling which had been planted in memory of the dead.
 People had placed white roses round it in a semicircle - it was really moving, I felt rather tearful.

The death of opera singer Lorraine Hunt Lieberson has been announced. Really tragic - she died of cancer at the age of 52.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=ayHyDEQkfCvM&refer=home

I hesitate to put this image on my page, since it consists of a photo of Winifred Wagner with Hitler, but - that's the title page of the book. The author is Brigitte Haman, and I got it for two quid at the local newsagents!
It makes for very depressing reading...I knew the outlines, how close the Wagner family were to Hitler, but I wasn't aware of the details...that they (especially Winifred) were close to him and involved in the Nazi Party FROM THE BEGINNING. And Siegfried wasn't the good-natured bumbling idiot that he is sometimes portrayed as, he shared and even promoted the anti-Semitic views of the Bayreuth circle.
What a horrible set of characters!!

Unbelievable? Believe it!! Camden Council were offering free compost bins, so I got one...and my landlady THREW IT AWAY, because she said she didn't want a compost bin in the garden.
She then got someone to trim the hedge and he left the hedge-clippings strewn all over the gravel and all over my plants for me to clear up, instead of -yes, putting them in the compost bin!!
going to the solicitor on Monday......!

(This is the serious bit!)

**********
19th. June 2006
Theatre du Chatelet, Paris
Schumann Recital by Thomas Hampson and Wolfram Rieger

The first half of the recital consisted of twelve Lieder to poems by
Justinius Kerner,which are not among Schumann's better-known works.
According to the excellent (and free!) programme,Schumann himself called
this series "Liederreihe" rather than "Liederkreis", to emphasise that
this is not a song-cycle with a unfolding narrative, but rather a series
of songs linked more musically than verbally. For me the most striking
song in the series was "Stirb, Lieb' und Freud'", in which the narrator
watches the girl he loves dedicated herself to life as a nun - and in
which Hampson produced the most incredible falsetto for the girl's voice!
A very strange and haunting song.
Hampson gave a very passionate and intelligent interpretation of all the
songs, and, as usual in Schumann, the piano is an equal partner with the
voice, not "the accompaniment", and Rieger does full justice to Schumann's
conception of this partnership, especially in the piano postludes which
characterise so many of his songs.
The last three songs, "Stille Traenen", "Wer machte dich so krank?", "Alte
Laute" are linked musically in this way - with no discernible break
between the postlude of one song and the beginning of the next. Hampson's
performance is very sensitive and conveys all the delicate nuances of the
text. In fact, he had been ill and had had to cancel a recital the
previous week - this was barely discernible in the voice or the
presentation, but at one point he did stop to mop his brow while he leant
on the piano, so he was evidently physically exhausted, but he didn't let
this affect his actual performance.
The second half of the recital was - what we usually call DICHTERLIEBE,
but, as a result of Hampson's own musicological researches into Schumann's
lieder, which can be read on his website at
http://www.hampsong.com/blog/schumannheine.php
four songs which were not in the original printed edition have been added
to the cycle, which was entitled "20 Lieder und Gesaenge aus dem LYRISCHEN
INTERMEZZO im BUCH DER LIEDER".
What impresses me over and over again in Hampson's Lieder interpretations
is his concentration on the meaning of the texts. I was especially struck
by the way he conveyed the bitter irony of "Ich grolle nicht" - the poet
claims that he's "not complaining", but of course the whole song is one of
complaint! Hampson captures Heine's irony in a way I've never quite
experienced before. And in "Im leuchtenden Sommermorgen" he conveyed the
idea that - perhaps the flower imagery isn't such a positive imagery after
all. The flowers say "Sei uns'rer Schwester nicht boese, Du trauriger,
blasser Mann" - as if they meant, don't be angry with our sister, she's
only a flower, she blooms, fades and dies, you can't expect constancy from
such an ephermeral creature.
I've singled these two out for special mention because Hampson seems to
have brought new insight into the interpretation, but he performed the
whole cycle with beautiful, sensitive phrasing and smoothness of tone and
intonation, equally partnered, as before, by Rieger.
For encores, he sang first "Du bist wie eine Blume", and then Meyerbeer's
setting of "Du schoenes Fischermaedchen", which most of us only know in
Schubert's setting. It's impossible to say which is "better", but the
Meyerbeer is a delightful version, which deserves to be better known.
During the applause, Hampson insisted that Rieger take a solo bow, as he
deserved. A great partnership of gifted artists.

Dr.Jane Susanna ENNIS
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

This is the frivolous bit!
Went to a recital of Schumann Lieder at the Chatelet, given by Thomas Hampson and Wolfram Rieger.
Afterwards I asked Hampson to sign my programme, and...he complimented me on what I was wearing!!! (Wow! Imagine, one of the most beautiful and elegant people in the world complimented ME!!!!)
The photo is of me with him at the Stage Door.

Will shortly write the serious bit...review of the recital!

Don't think I ever explained that, apart from my garden at home, I do a voluntary job as a garden for the William Morris Society at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith.

When I started this job I planted a white rose "Saints Felicite et Perpetue" - yes, it really is called that, it's named after a pair of medieval martyrs. The rose has grown up the trellising and looks really beautiful. The buds have a pinkish tinge, and when the flowers are open they are a pale cream shade.

Isn't it just wonderful when it's been raining....feels so fresh!! And the gardens must be so happy....

Managed to get all the tickets I asked for!! Without the site crashing!!!!
LA BOHEME

CARMEN and LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

The death has been announced of the composer Gyorgy Ligeti.
http://www.schott-music.com/news/komponistennews/show,3336.html

Some lovely violas have self-seeded in my garden!! One is HEARTSEASE, which looks like this...the other is a very pale cream with blue edging...the photo isn't ready yet!

Women of England, THERE IS HOPE!!

Click here for STOP THE WORLD CUP

Bought some plants at CAMDEN GREEN FAIR.

Some chard (aka Leaf Beet 'Bright Lights'- you can see why!) It doesn't look quite like this at the moment, but I'm hoping it will in a few weeks...and it tastes good too!

I also planted some tomatoes- these I didn't get from Camden Green Fair, just from a local greengrocers!

Friends of the Earth biodiversity campaign - some info HERE.

On the way in to the library this morning, saw and smelt the beautiful jasmine in the neighbours' gardens!
Mine doesn't qualify as a bush yet, but I planted it by the trellising, and am expecting great things of it!

The 2006 season for OPERA HOLLAND PARK starts soon. This year they are performing:
FEDORA (Giordano)
MANON LESCAUT (Puccini)
COSI FAN TUTTE (Mozart)
THE MERRY WIDOW (Lehar)
RIGOLETTO (Verdi)
THE QUEEN OF SPADES (Tchaikovsky)
*********
I've added some images from last year's MACBETH, which was a really good production, very well-performed.

Olafur Sigurdarson as Macbeth

Miriam Murphy as Lady Macbeth

In case anyone's interested, it's Camden Green Fair in Regent's Park on Sunday. I shall probably be on the Green Party Stall at some point!

There's some info HERE.

Managed to do some planting this morning! The first thing I did was to transplant the jasmine - it smells SO GORGEOUS!! (this image is from the web)

I planted some courgette seeds, in the hope that eventually I will be able to harvest the FLOWERS and make one of my favourite recipes - STUFFED COURGETTE FLOWERS.

Then I planted some marigolds...
And finally harvested some lovely rocket (rucola) to have with my lunch.

Some wisteria to feast your eyes on...it's in our garden in Italy.

I decided to expand the blog to write about many of the other things that interest me, so I've changed the title as well. Is there some way to integrate all these interests, I wonder???!!

Oh well, in answer to my own question, I just found this blog called Gardening with the Arts!

Went to Chelsea Flower Show on Wednesday ....poured with rain the whole time!! :' I was struck by the irony of all the drought-resistant gardens threatened with flooding...
The graphics here are not mine, as I haven't got the photos back yet...they are from the RHS Webpage.
OK, the first thing I bought was an RHS T-Shirt!! Which turned out to be very useful when I got home, as I was literally soaked to the skin, and had to towel myself dry and find some clean dry clothes to put on...so I was glad I'd bought the T-Shirt!
During the short period when it wasn't raining, we took the opportunity to look at the Show Gardens.

(

Thomas Hampson prepares for last three stops on 11-city Library of Congress “Song of America” Tour
The widely acclaimed project, featuring song recitals, exhibits from Library, extensive community and educational outreach, concludes with performances in Chicago (May 28), Omaha (May 31), and San Jose (June 3)

“Mr. Hampson conveys the idea of an oral tradition that it is his mission to pass on, with the closed-eyed intensity of a blind poet when he is singing and the zeal of an evangelist when he is addressing the audience about its cultural heritage.”
– Anne Midgette/The New York Times

June 3: California Theatre, San Jose, California (Wolfram Rieger, piano)

The programme for the forthcoming season is available:
http://info.royaloperahouse.org/season/index.cfm?ccs=985

FRIENDS OF COVENT GARDEN booking opened yesterday - we lesser mortals have to wait till 13th. June
I am particularly pleased that there are to be further performances of LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK....conducted by ANTONIO PAPPANO, my absolutely favourite conductor!!

(Review of a recital in New York...wish I could have been there!)
A Big Voice Inaugurates a Smallish Concert Hall
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
It's not often that concertgoers in New York can hear a singer of the renown of the baritone Thomas Hampson in a recital hall that seats only 280. But the Morgan Library and Museum, which this weekend opened the doors to a splendid new pavilion that unites its existing and expanded building, wanted to call attention to a special component of its new campus: Gilder Lehrman Hall, a new space for chamber music, recitals, lectures and readings. So the Morgan secured the services of Mr. Hampson, along with the pianist Craig Rutenberg, a noted accompanist and opera coach, and the Vermeer String Quartet, to inaugurate the hall with an engaging program on Tuesday night.

New York has few intimate and acoustically appealing halls in the 250-seat range. The Morgan is hoping that its handsome space — designed, like the pavilion, by the architect Renzo Piano — will become a valuable resource. It usually takes concertgoers (this one, at least) time to assess the acoustics and qualities of a new hall. But it's clear from the get-go that this one will be welcomed by the music lovers in the city.

It is located in the lower basement area of the new complex. You enter through the airy glass-enclosed pavilion and can either walk down an elegant winding staircase or take the roomy elevators. The hall is raked at a steep angle, which means that sightlines are excellent from every seat. The stage area can be reconfigured so that the hall can accommodate 240 to 280 people.

The walls are made of lovely cherry wood, and the cushioned seats are colored what could be called Roman Catholic Cardinal Red. Those who like their mattresses extra firm will be at home in these seats. The Morgan might have chosen to eliminate two or three rows to create a bit more legroom. At just over six feet, I was comfortable. But those who are as tall as, say, Mr. Hampson may feel cramped. Because of the significant slope of the raked floor, the back rows do feel somewhat far from the stage for such an essentially intimate space. Still, the hall is inviting and attractive.

So the big question, as always: How are the acoustics? In designing the hall Mr. Piano worked with Eckhard Kahle of Kahle Acoustics in Brussels. As in many modern halls, the acoustics are bright and resonant, rather than warm and rich. The Vermeer Quartet began the program with Schumann's String Quartet in A (Op. 41, No. 3). It is always involving to hear a string quartet up close, and the sound enveloped you the way it never can in a large recital hall.

Still, at times there was a strident quality to the string sound. How much of this was attributable to the playing of the Vermeer Quartet is hard to say. Its performance of this impetuous work had lots of character and energy. But the musicians may have been compensating for some shakiness in execution by digging in and playing with extra grit.

Mr. Hampson then joined the Vermeer for a performance of Samuel Barber's "Dover Beach," a ruminative 10-minute setting for baritone and string quartet of a Mathew Arnold poem. Mr. Hampson's virile voice easily filled the hall. No text was provided in the program, but none was needed, because Mr. Hampson, with his crisp enunciation, made every word clear.

Then he reappeared with Mr. Rutenberg for a group of German songs. In principle, there is no reason Mr. Hampson should not have sung out fully, as he did, and as he will next week, when he takes on the role of Amfortas in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Wagner's "Parsifal." He seldom gets to sing in spaces this intimate, and he seemed to be enjoying the chance the let his voice bounce off the walls.

On the other hand there is something to be said for scaling down your voice to suit a space. Too often, for my taste, Mr. Hampson oversang.

In the first offering, "Der Lindenbaum" from Schubert's "Winterreise," he shaped the phrases with subtlety and elegance. But he bellowed during "Das Irdische Leben" from Mahler's "Des Knaben Wunderhorn." The performance was terrifying in two senses. The song is a horrific tale of a starving child pleading with its mother for food, and Mr. Hampson conveyed the desperation in the music. But it was also terrifying to hear this essential baritone push his voice with such force.

Mr. Hampson showed why he is a respected Mahler singer in the poignant "Wo die Schönen Trompeten Blasen," which tells of a maiden and her lover parting as distant trumpets call the young man to war. Mr. Hampson sang tenderly, while at the piano Mr. Rutenberg voiced the pungent harmonies beautifully. He also brought a lovely touch to the rippling runs of Strauss's "Heimliche Aufforderung," which Mr. Hampson sang with fervent intensity.

Before turning to a group of American songs, Mr. Hampson paid tribute to the Morgan as an institution of immeasurable value and told the audience that the original manuscripts of the German songs he had just sung were all part of the Morgan's renowned collection.

Mr. Hampson has been touring the United States this season with a program of little-known American songs, a project sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. Here he offered samplers with songs by Henry Thacker Burleigh, Edward MacDowell and Charles Ives, an arrangement of the traditional "Shenandoah" and one of Copland's "Old American Songs." Again, his singing was hardy and involving, though his earthy tones sometimes turned coarse as he sent fortissimo notes soaring.

There is great potential in Gilder Lehrman Hall. But as with a new instrument, a new hall must be broken in, and musicians have to learn how to play it.

I note the avid fascination with which you have all been following this!
nevertheless, I feel it incumbent upon me to mention that I did gain 278 votes in my ward (Belsize) and that we now have 2 Green Councillors in Highgate Ward!
And there are SIX Green councillors in Lewisham

(Reuters article, posted from Yahoo)

Eco-friendly, urban and full of bicycles – the city of Oxford might just be David Cameron's perfect target seat for this May's local elections. But, the Conservatives have managed to win just one seat on the city council in the last ten years, and the real battle next month is likely to be between Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and of course, the Greens.

Oxford is one of the Green party's strongholds – they hold six council seats, which may be less than Labour's 21 and the Lib Dems' 17, but a few years ago they managed to oust the Labour leader and now have high hopes for May 4th.
Given the history of social and environmental movements in Oxford , it is unsurprising that the Greens have done so well here, and council group leader Craig Simmons admits many voters "do feel close to us ideologically".

However, the 47-year-old believes local politics is more about issues on the ground, such as affordable housing and recycling schemes, and how councillors perform, rather than any idea about what the Greens stand for as a national party.
"The background of course gave us a foothold, but once we started to get elected, people realised we were good local councillors – we generated our own momentum," he told politics.co.uk.

"Young professionals and students do tend to vote on more national issues, but our core voters come from people concerned by local issues."

There is an argument that having such a strong Green party makes local politics a bit more exciting, giving people a chance to back policies that are not represented at a national level by the three main parties at Westminster.

However, Cllr Simmons insists the key to local democracy is engaging with the voters and taking decisions based on their experiences – a position the leader of the council, Labour's Alex Hollingsworth, supports.

"It isn't that existence of small parties that makes politics in Oxford vibrant – the two large parties are both fully active and engaged on the doorstep," the 37-year-old said.

Cllr Hollingsworth also questions whether the history of environmentalism in Oxford necessarily benefits the Greens – all councillors in the city, regardless of their party, are drawn out of that same history, he notes, and should reflect the community.

"The electorate to whom we are all speaking to are perhaps more aware of some issues – but parties draw their activists from that same background. It is an inevitable consequence of any community whose opinions skew from the normal," he argued.

So do local elections bear any resemblance to national politics, or are they purely based on voters' experiences of their local environment?

The Conservatives may have held just one seat in the last ten years in Oxford city – and then only for two years – but they control the county council, with the Greens holding just four seats. Then again, none of the Tory seats are in Oxford itself.

At a parliamentary level, the picture is also mixed - Lib Dem Evan Harris is the MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, but the Tories came in second place in the last two general elections, with the Greens struggling to get more than four per cent of the vote.

Meanwhile, in Oxford East, where Labour's Andrew Smith is the MP, the Lib Dems have been in second place since 2001 but the Conservatives have each time polled at least four times as many votes as the Greens.

The Greens' success in Oxford may therefore be less to do with their appeal to eco-friendly voters, and more to do with an ability, like their Lib Dem and Labour council colleagues, to simply get the job done. Which is probably how it should be.

Election Message BoardsLocal elections - what's your big issue? Tue, 02 May 2006 12:52:55 GMT
Italian Election Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:22:42 GMT
Discuss & Post Messages

Hilarious story from the new Italian parliament;
ITALY'S TRANSGENDER MP FIGHTS TOILET "APARTHEID"
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/04052006/80-132/italy-s-transgender-mp-fights-toilet-apartheid.html#

I am waiting for the count in Somers Town Sports Centre - I stood for the Green Party.
Anyone else involved today?

Thought you might like to see this picture of the wisteria in the garden of our house near Livorno, in Tuscany.

Royal Opera House,Covent Garden
Richard Wagner, GOETTERDAEMMERUNG,
Saturday 30th. April 2006

************
Musically, this performance was something approaching a triumph for
Antonio Pappano, the orchestra and some of the singers. Visually it was
perhaps not quite so satisfactory, although there were some inspired
lighting effects and stage images.
Pappano adopted a leisurely, expansive tempo at the beginning, though not
too leisurely; well-paced is perhaps the best way of describing his
approach. After the Norns' scene, the Dawn starts almost tentatively,
building up to a burst of orchestral sunlight, and this was reflected on
the stage, as the darkness dissipates and a bird is seen hovering over the
stage; one of Wotan's ravens, perhaps?
What I especially love about Pappano's conducting is the detailed
attention to every nuance of orchestral shading and the emphasis on the
qualities of the individual instruments - never drowning out the singers
and never being overwhelmed by them - not even by the Brunnhilde, Lisa
Gasteen! I remember noting that in SIEGFRIED her voice sounded warm and
mellifluous; here the steely brightness is more in evidence, her high
notes in Act II really sliced the air! The Immolation Scene was one of the
most convincing I have seen. The statues of the gods have been present on
the stage since the Wedding Scene in Act II, and during the Immolation,
which culminated in a very satisfying conflagration, they are consumed in
the flames - except for the statue of Wotan, which Brunnhilde covers with
a veil as she sings "Ruhe, ruhe du Gott!" and weeps - so movingly that I
felt tears pricking my eyelids too!
The Siegfried, John Treleaven, was not really a match for Gasteen, but his
performance was quite satisfactory, without having any special features
that can be highlighted. I liked the way the opening scene for Siegfried
and Brunnhilde was staged, with a lot of embracing and kissing, so that we
can see how deeply in love they are.
John Tomlinson as Hagen was effortlessly dominating - he has such stage
presence that he just has to sit there for the audience to realise that
Hagen is the dominant one in the Gibichung family! His characterisation of
Hagen has a certain grim humour; he does actually laugh sarcastically at
the end of his monolgue. He is then present on the stage until the end of
Act I; he does not seem to pay any attention to Waltraute's Narration
(this was well performed by Mihoko Fujimura), but after the final scene,
when Siegfried removes the Tarnhelm and announces his intention to place
his sword between himself and Brunnhilde, Hagen gets up and lifts his
chair above his head in triumph.
This brings me to one of the points I very much disliked about the staging
(and everyone I spoke to during the interval agreed with me); Siegfried
comes back, not disguised as Gunther, but WITH GUNTHER. That is, Gunther
himself is present on stage, while Siegfried is ALSO there, wearing the
Tarnhelm. This of course makes nonsense, not only of this scene, but of
Act II; the whole point is that IT ISN'T REALLY GUNTHER! And if it IS
really Gunther, then HE has the Ring all along...no-one could see the
reasoning behind this. I gave up on it and watched Pappano in the pit
instead - a much more rewarding experience!
Another failure of the production was the horse's skull, which Brunnhilde
first hands to Siegfried as he sets off for his Rhine Journey, and which
he hands to Hagen - which produces a wave of giggles and titters in the
audience. Brunnhilde has it in her hands at the end, for "Grane, mein
Ross, sei mir gegruesst!" No-one could see the point of this either -
unless it was to provoke a cheap laugh, which it did.
But other aspects of the staging were much better - such as the curtain
covered with mathematical symbols and a swirling galaxy, before which the
Norns enacted their scene, and which also served as the backdrop for the
Hagen/Alberich scene. The lighting effects and projections were very
impressive, for instance for Siegfried's Rhine Journey, there was a
projection of the swirling waters of a river.
I am looking forward to seeing the whole Ring Cycle in 2007, but I think
some work still needs to be done on the actual staging. (PLEASE get rid of
the horse's skull!)
Dr. Jane Susanna ENNIS
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/wagner.html
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/ring1.html

The 2006 BBC Proms Guide is now on sale, giving you full season listings and booking
information on all 73 Proms, five Proms in the Park, eight Proms Chamber Music
concerts and much, much more.

The season features the traditional mixture of great music, artists and events,
including birthday celebrations for Mozart and Shostakovich, an 80th birthday
concert for The Queen, a day devoted to The Voice and the world premiere of Elgar's
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6.

Advance booking for all concerts opens on 15 May, from which point you can apply for
tickets online, by post or by fax. Applications will be processed and tickets will
be allocated subject to availability. This booking period represents the best chance
of getting the seats you want.

NEW MUSIC
The world premieres of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6 (completed by
Anthony Payne), Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's new work for The Queen's 80th birthday,
and a new version of the Blue Peter theme are just three new music highlights in
2006. We also have UK premieres from such leading living composers as Osvaldo
Golijov, HK Gruber and Magnus Lindberg, as well as original new voices Dai Fujikura
and Benjamin Wallfisch, plus BBC commissions from British talents Julian Anderson,
George Benjamin, James Dillon, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Ian Wilson.

VISITING ARTISTS
This year, international artistic talent includes Christoph Eschenbach (carrying
forward the four-year-long Proms Ring cycle), Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur, and Sir
Simon Rattle along with a host of other leading names. Visiting orchestras – from
Bamberg under Jonathan Nott and Budapest under Iván Fischer, to Pittsburgh under Sir
Andrew Davis and Minnesota under Osmo Vänskä – plus Proms debuts from Stéphane
Denève with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Philippe Jordan with the Gustav
Mahler Youth Orchestra and many other major artists, together with a late-night
celebration of Islamic music and culture, all add up to a truly international
festival of outstanding talent in 2006. The full roster of artists can be seen at
www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whatson/atoz_artist.shtml.

PROMS SATURDAY MATINEES
Following the success of last season’s Proms Chamber Music series in its new venue
at Cadogan Hall, we’re very pleased to launch a new series: four Saturday matinee
concerts highlighting the music of this year’s anniversary composers Mozart and
Shostakovich in performances by leading British chamber orchestras. Read more about
the Saturday Matinees and all the other Proms Extras events at
www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whatson/talks.shtml.

THE VOICE
This year, we’re inviting Prommers to sing at the Proms for the first time
(officially!) as part of a day devoted to the human voice. We are undertaking our
biggest and boldest creative project to date – calling on more than 800 amateur
singers drawn from a wide variety of singing backgrounds, and including 100
Prommers, two symphony orchestras, two conductors and the professional choir The
Shout. Together, in two separate concerts, they perform two versions of a new work
by Orlando Gough with a text by renowned playwright Caryl Churchill. You can find
out more and apply to participate at www.bbc.co.uk/proms/newhorizons/thevoice.shtml.

The BBC Proms Guide contains full details of the complete programme of concerts,
along with articles about the music and artists, and an advance booking form. Priced
£5, the same price as a Promming ticket, it is available from all good bookshops and
can be ordered from the BBC Shop, 50 Margaret Street, W1W 8SF, or by telephone on
0870 241 5490. Alternatively, you can see all the concert listings and booking
information online at bbc.co.uk/proms.

BBC PROMS: FRIDAY 14 JULY – SATURDAY 9 SEPTEMBER 2006
THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSIC FESTIVAL

Download this as a file

Sounds like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it?
It's an article in today's Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1761530,00.html

about cafes which serve REAL food (often veggie or vegan) at reasonably low prices, so there is NO NEED for anyone ever to go to Macdonalds!

I note it lists my favourite cafe in Edinburgh, THE BAKED POTATO SHOP, which does wonderful veggie fillings.
(Including "vegetarian haggis" which sounds like a contradiction in terms, and which I haven't ventured to try yet).

While in Italy, I obtained these recordings on special offer with the local paper! (Il TIRRENO)

iii) CARMEN with Callas and Gedda, cond. Georges Pretre, with Orchestre du Theatre National de l'Orchestre de Paris (1964)

Prodi has been confirmed as the victor by the Appeals Court (Cassazione). Here is an article from the BBC Webpage

Nevertheless. Berlusconi is STILL refusing to concede defeat! He has also refused to telephone Prodi to congratulate him.

During our stay in Italy we visited San Gimignano, a small hill-town in Tuscany. There are some wonderful frescoes in the Cathedral, and a museum about the history of the town from the Medieval period. (there are fewer Etruscan antiquities than in Volterra, however).
Just before lunch, we listened to a woman playing a harp in the piazza...was wonderful, such a peaceful sound. Later she came into the restaurant, so I was able to speak to her and buy her CD.

We bought MANDORLATA from this pasticceria! It's a type of Pan Forte, but it's a special type that you can only get here - it's made with almonds. (I love almonds).

yes, that's correct....never a dull moment!!
There was an EARTHQUAKE in Livorno last night ..in fact all along the Tuscan coast. Measured 4.1 on the Richter scale..Fortunately no-one was injured.

I have forwarded this from OPERA NOW, and I DO HOPE I have not broken any copyright regulations...I couldn't get in to OPERA NOW to ask permission....
It's such a fascinating recording...and it covers my interest in gardening, as well as my interest in music!

********

The Rose, the Lily & the Whortleberry: Medieval Gardens
Holding “The Rose, the Lily & the Whortleberry” in my hands, I pondered for a moment whether it belonged on my bookshelf or in the CD cabinet.

The Rose, the Lily & the Whortleberry: Medieval Gardens

The Orlando Consort

Harmonia Mundi HMU 907398 [CD]

$16.99 Click to buy
Printer Version
Send to a Friend
The recording is housed in a handsome, finely illustrated, hard-bound volume, admittedly jewel-case sized, but running to over 100 pages by the time translations are included—substantial enough to suggest this might be a book accompanied by a CD, rather than the other way around, although it is clear that it is the musical program that has elicited the text. More close to the mark is that “The Rose, the Lily & the Whortleberry” is something of a well-cultivated garden itself, where diverse elements—literary, iconographic, horticultural, and musical—blossom into a satisfyingly harmonious whole. Or, to adopt a more explicitly musical metaphor, the production offers a fantasia on gardens in the pre-modern world.

The diversity of the anthology is impressive. Although thematically unified around horticultural images, the music ranges over a three-hundred-year span from c. 1250 to the 1560’s and represents six national styles; the musical texts themselves move between the suffering pangs of amour courtois, the spiritual eroticism of the Song of Songs, and more earthly forms of conjugal pleasure. Additionally, the book presents short essays by various authors on the history and literary sources of the medieval garden, a modern evocation of the medieval garden, and extensive program notes on the music, published with handsome reproductions of period iconography and photographs of historic gardens. Interestingly, the recording and book are suggestive of the ways in which music was heard, not in isolation, but always in a context, and it further reminds us that gardens were not only images in musical texts, but also sensory-rich sites for music making. Our modern propensity for i-Pods and the like gives music a mobility that opens it to seemingly limitless numbers of potential contexts, but at the same time, mediated through the personal headset, the music and the hearer are both artificially isolated from surroundings. By contrast, it is the rich interaction of surroundings and music that the Orlando Consort so splendidly evokes and celebrates here.

The singing of the Orlando Consort is highly accomplished, characterized by both naturalness and flair. The ensemble sound is full and free in tone, vibrant and resonant, though with a tight focus. The fullness of sound can leave one wanting a taste of simpler, clearer timbres from time to time, but the characteristic exuberance is easy to appreciate.

One of the difficulties of anthology programs is making sufficient stylistic distinction between pieces, and admittedly, there is a strong degree of similarity in the Consort’s approach to the different works here. The use of period vernacular and geographically inflected Latin pronunciations adds a measure of distinction, certainly, but one wonders if the musical palette itself might have also been more varied. In the end, however, these are compelling and highly committed performances. In context of a so well conceived and richly produced program, it is an offering you will want for either your bookshelf or your CD cabinet . . . or perhaps even both.

Steven Plank
Oberlin College

Berlusconi still hasn't admitted defeat.....
anyone see the ghost of a Hanging Chad here?

Today I bought a wonderful t-shirt, with a logo reading

BELLA CIAO, SILVIO!!

Esultate!! (I think)

Prodi has definitely won, but Berlusconi still won't concede defeat...
here's a news item from Yahoo.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/12042006/325/italy-vote-dispute-rages.html

The current BBC Music Magazine http://www.bbcmusicmagazine.com/

offers further proof (if further proof were needed) that Bieito is a pretentious idiot and a fraud. (And remember, I'm the one that LIKES modernism and updating!)

In an interview with Ivan Hewitt in April's BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE, Bieito discusses his production of DON GIOVANNI..and unerringly puts his finger
on precisely what is wrong with it.

Hewitt asks, quite rightly, "What about the class distinctions in Mozart's Opera?" And Bieito replies...
"I'm not interested in class. What's important about the DOn is his charisma. He's an old friend of Leporello, but he dominates him....."

OK, THAT is precisely why Peter Sellers' DON GIOVANNI works and Bieito's doesn't ...because Bieito discounts the element of class.

The interview also discusses the final scene, in which Giovanni is not dragged down to hell; instead Don Ottavio makes them all, including
Leporello, stab him.
To me, this scene bore an unfortunate resemblance to MURDER ON THE ORIENT
EXPRESS....you know the one I mean, where they all did it, but the person they killed was so horrible that Hercule Poirot lets them get away with it.

just needed to get that off my chest!
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

This portrait is the famous castrato Farinelli

There is currently an exhibition at Handel House, London, about the castrati who were such a feature of Handel's operas. read the article from the BBC News Magazine!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4853432.stm

This picture shows the historian David Starkey holding one of the instruments used to carry out the operation.

This link should take you to the Home Page of the Handel House Museum.
http://www.handelhouse.org/

(Non-operatic again, but I love this list!)

16. Sits on your newspaper in the morning and carefully reads the coded message that Garfield sends out every day.

1. Somehow, you're now subscribed to "Feline of Fortune" magazine.

http://info.royaloperahouse.org/News/Index.cfm?ccs=971

This information has just been released on the ROH Website. I am delighted that I will get to see The Divine Thomas as Athanael in THAIS. (Renee Fleming in the title role!)

Did anyone listen to this yesterday? The presenter (whose name I've forgotten) chose the Chatelet version, conducted by Pappano, as his overall favourite...
which is interesting, because it's my overall favourite too.
What do the rest of you think?

(OK, non-operatic, but what the hell!)

On the first day of creation, God created the Cat.
On the second day, God created Man to serve the Cat.
On the third day, God created all the animals of the earth to serve as potential food for the Cat.
On the fourth day, God created honest toil so that Man could labour for the good of the Cat.
On the fifth day, God created the Sparkle Ball, so that the Cat might or might not play with it.
On the sixth day, God created veterinary science to keep the Cat healthy and the Man broke
On the seventh day, God wished to rest, but She had to clean out the litter-tray.

http://www.threepennyopera.org/

New Threepenny Opera site created by the Kurt Weill Foundation.
Brilliant...I do urge you to visit it!
Leonora
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

This was actually a while ago...
Every summer I look after some cats in Finsbury Park. The youngest, Mimi,is so naughty she should really have been called Musetta!
When she was a kitten, she used to tear through the house like a small grey tornado... Until one day I put on a video of the Chatelet DON CARLOS...and she was absolutely mesmerised!! She sat in front of the screen for about ten minutes without twitching a whisker.....
Evidently The Divine Thomas has cast his spell over her too!

OK, not precisely operatic, but I thought music-lovers might be interested!
I bought a new phone, and it has ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE ringtones...and the network had about a thousand pop jingles for downloading
I asked some opera-loving friends for advice, and this is what they came up with;

http://www.lsoringtones.co.uk/index.php?l=EN&a=g&g=2&t=all&b=20
This is the LSO, and from them I obtained
(i) The Ride of the Valkyries
(ii) Vaughan Williams FANTASIA ON GREENSLEEVES

And from
http://www.booseytones.com/index.php?l=EN

I got
(i)Peter Maxwell Davies FAREWELL TO STROMNESS
My absolutely FAVOURITE piece of piano music!
(ii) A theme from Mahler's 3rd. symphony.

So now I'm happy!
(They only cost £3.00 each, BTW)
Leonora
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html
A theme

Has anyone else seen this?
What did you think of it?
I must say, I didn't think the production was all that wonderful....there's only so much symbolism you can extract from Soviet cosmonauts in Kazhakstan....when the opera is about the SEA...

And the sailors (cosmonauts) gang-raping the girls was completely inappropriate....

Having said this, I thought Terfel was wonderful...conveying the Dutchman's desperation and weariness even in the way he moved on the stage, the set of his shoulders...
Leonora
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

Here, finally, my review of MACBETH.
Did anyone else see it? What did you think of it?

If you go to
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/Macbeth.html

you will be able to see a version with graphics.
*******

>
Giuseppe Verdi, MACBETH
> Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Friday 24th. February 2006
>
>
> CAST
> MACBETH: Thomas Hampson
> BANQUO: John Relyea
> LADY MACBETH: Violeta Urmana
> LADY-IN-WAITING: Elizabeth Woolett
> MACDUFF: Joseph Calleja
> MALCOLM: Andrew Stritheran*
> DOCTOR: Robert Gleadow*
> *Jette Parker Young Artists
>
>
> CONDUCTOR: Yakov Kreizberg
> DIRECTOR: Phyllida Lloyd
> LIGHTING: Paule Constable
> CHOREOGRAPHY: Michael Keegan Dolan
>
>
> Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
> ***********
>
>
> A good and exciting performance, which sometimes rose to heights of
> excellence. Yakov Kreizberg favoured a brisk tempo at the opening, which
> perhaps was more expressive of Macbeth's martial valour than of the
> atmosphere of sinister malevolence which should brood over the entire
> work, but the tempo was less brisk during the scenes where a more
> leisurely tempo is important - the Sleepwalking Scene especially.
>
> Thomas Hampson as Macbeth sounded slightly tentative at first, but, as I
> indicated, rose to heights of excellence as the work progressed. Thus he
> wasn't quite confident in conveying the idea of Macbeth as a brave
> soldier and loyal subject, but very effective in conveying the
> disintegration of a mind steeped in crime and not able to draw back. His
> "pieta, rispetto,
> amore" was indeed Shakespearean in tone! His voice is perhaps more lyrical
> than dramatic, but I don't find this a fault. He was well-matched by
> Violeta Urmana's Lady Macbeth, though it has to be
> admitted that, on the night I saw the performance, she couldn't manage the
> high D flat at the end of the Sleepwalking Scene - it's supposed to
> almost fade away into nothingness, but she gave a gulp as she missed the
> note. Still, this was the only fault in an otherwise very convincing
> performance; I was especially impressed with the interaction between her
> and Hampson in the duet after he has committed the murder, not just
> vocally but dramatically as well - his torment when he hears the voice
> saying "Macbeth shall sleep no more", and her indifference to his
> conscience. She was very forceful in the letter scene, and almost
> pitiable in the Sleepwalking Scene. John Relyea has a deep, sonorous bass,
> and delivered Banquo's aria with conviction, and Joseph Calleja made the
> most of "Ah, la paterna mano", which is the tenor's "consolation prize" in
> this opera which concentrates on the baritone and the soprano. The stage in
> Phyllida's Lloyd's uncluttered production was predominantly
> dark, and the shafts of light that occurred at crucial moments were thus
> unexpected and very effective. The witches are dressed in black, with red
> headdresses. Duncan is dressed in gold, and appears at the back of the
> stage on a gold-draped horse.....and this golden appearance is parodied
> by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the Banquet Scene; they look slightly
> ill-at-ease in their new finery, and I wondered if this was a reference to
> Shakespeare clothing imagery; at one point Macbeth, when told he is to
> be Thane of Cawdor, asks "Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?"
> The scene in which Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are visited by children is,
> according to Phyllida Lloyd, a definite reference to Shakespeare; not only
> Macduff's children (who do not appear in the opera), but also to the
> repeated images of barrenness that occur in the play with reference to the
> Macbeths. (Macduff's vengeance can never be complete, because "he has no
> children"). Another coup de theatre occurred as the screens rose to show
> Duncan's
> body, lying on the bed covered in blood - this doesn't usually happen even
> in productions of the play, and it came as a shock. We also see the
> execution of the Thane of Cawdor. To sum up - a good performance,
> musically and dramatically, and also visually effective.
>
> Dr. Jane Susanna ENNIS
> http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html
>
>
>
>
>

I haven't written my review yet...
Just thought it might interest people to know that I met Thomas Hampson again after the performance.
I had contrived to lose my programme! But before the performance I had purchased a CD - THE VERY BEST OF THOMAS HAMPSON - so he signed the booklet.
I shall treasure that CD more than any of my other CDs of Hampson...I think I have about 17 or 18!!
Leonora
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

I was just wondering if any of the other opera-lovers are going to MACBETH at Covent Garden? We are going next Friday (24th. Feb)

I have just opened this page, and am very unfamiliar with blogs.
I intend to use it to write about opera.