Unembellished will do

1  Earlier in the week, the BBC screened a one-hour television programme about  a priest in the diocese of Rapphoe, in the north-west of Ireland, who abused young boys and girls.  During the hour, the presenter made plain that the priest's activities had been known, that the bishop's reaction had been to move the priest  from one parish to another.  One man described how he had been abused and how he had given the priest's name and the names of other victims to a panel of priests. The panel which included Fr Sean Brady, who is now the cardinal-archbishop of Armagh.

2  A shocking tale.  A priest who abused youngsters, the recollections of some of those children, the failure of the bishop to prevent further abuse once they had been told, orally and in writing, about the priest - such were the elements of the tale.  The programme, in the persons of the maker/presenter and a nationally-known commentator, sought to explain something of the power and position of the RC Church in 'Catholic Ireland'.  Archival film of the 1932 Eurcharistic Congress in Dublin was used.  So too, in contrast,  was more recent film of extracts from Enda Kenny's speech to the Dail.  Subsequent to that speech, the Republic of Ireland severed diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

3  The tale was so shocking, the conduct of the Church - the professional members - so cruel, that it did not require embellishment.  Had the programme been broadcast on radio, there would have been no scope for photographs of Donegal landscapes and seascapes.  No reddish skies overlooking undeveloped, primitive lakes and rias.  In addition, there might have been no mood music either.  Instead, the listeners might have heard the main witnesses, the presenter and commentator, and others without the distraction of those land- and seascapes, without the distraction of the music.  The shocking tale could have been delivered as a Radio 4 programme.

3.1  However  once the decision to taken to make a television programme, then those distracting additions follow.  Programme time will be allocated to the pictures.  The music will be added.  There will be the impulse to aid the narrative by the inclusion of the contrived meeting, for instance, when, as in the programme, one of the men who was abused is filmed as he walks towards another man, a childhood friend, who was also abused.  The other man is shown looking out to sea.  He turns, the two men utter their lines of surprised greeting.  Ah.

4  Meanwhile, whatever the merits of one medium compared with another, the substance of the programme remains to be addressed.  The cardinal-archbishop of Armagh is not answerable to the Catholics-at-large.  Commentators say that he is damaged, that his moral authority has been shot away.  After all, he was a member of a panel which questioned one of the boys, which excluded the boy's father, from the interrogation, and which recorded the boy's testimony, including the  names of other boys.  Yet that priest, now the cardinal-archbishop, (and the other priests) did not blow the whistle, to use the contemporary phrase, when it became evident to them that their superiors at the time were not acting as they should have done.  As a result, the abusing priest continued to abuse.

5  Of course the people should rise up.  Of course they should throw the rascal out.  Of course they won't.  Instead, I expect there to be a silence from the Holy See, the appointment of a coajutor, the subsequent resignation, in due time, of the present cardinal-archbishop.  We'll see.

6  And the imperatives which bear upon a television programme-maker?  Yes, yes I acknowledge them.  It might have been though that the tale was so strong that the presenter could have said 'Let's just hold back on the music and the sunset over loch-whatsitsname.

A Vivid Reminder

1  Of course, I realised there wouldn't be room.  The exhibition is just too small, too small to accommodate all the secondary-school students in Southwark and thus much to small to accommodate their peers in the other 31 boroughs.  And what about the secondary-school children in the Home Counties and in the counties beyond.  I know, I know.  There just isn't room.

2  Yet as I left The Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum at the end of my most recent visit, I felt what I had felt during previous visits.  Everyone should attend.  As I mused, that sense mutated into a sense that a sufficient number should attend, such a number which would be sufficient to promote the exhibition when a promotional opportunity arose, such a number which would be sufficient to prompt a flow of first-time visitors.  

3  For what it important, it strikes me, is that so gross an event, so terrifying an expression of the dark forces within us, should be publicised, should be visited, should not remain within the knowledge of just a few.  For years, since those long-ago days, beginning in the sixth form, I have been reading about the Holocaust.  Yet as I walked through the exhibition, and as I left, I wondered how it was that a whole population, in western Europe, could have consented to, could have collaborated with the application of the industrial power of the State to the extermination of a religious group within its boundaries.  


4  Yet I know that the answers are readily available in books and elsewhere.  A biography of Hitler will set out his thinking about Jews.  Within the last year I have read a gripping, detailed account of the beginning and growth of the Nazi party between 1918 and 1933, the year in which the man who had been a corporal 15 years before was appointed Chancellor by a man who, those years ago, had been a field marshal.  The following volume explains how the Nazi party, controlling the state power in Germany, having captured the hearts (and minds) of a sufficient number of the German people, set out systematically to extend its control over the thinking and daily working of the German people and to crush the instruments, people and organisation, of opposition.  I have in mind, as I key these words, the picture of Hitler's entry into Vienna in March 1938 and the picture of  elderly Jews, on their hands and knees, cleaning a pavement in the city.  Cheers and jeers.


5  Yet, yet, how can it have happened.

No distractions

1  Earlier today, I listened to an exchange on the Today programme about the trial of the man who has admitted the charge of multiple murder.  There were three contributors: the Today interviewer,  an authoritative man, a medical professional who could talk about the effect of the trial on people in Norway and a legal professional, one who could talk about the trial.  


2  What was striking was the nature of the exchange, which may have run for about three minutes. There were no distractions.  Neither of the two contributors sought to score a point over the other. Both spoke clearly.  Both, if clarity and evenness of speech is a guide, knew what they were talking about.  The complemented each other.  Meanwhile, the questioner put the questions clearly.  Whilst the questions were intended to challenge, there was no sense of a questioner seeking to circumscribe, to pin down, a responder who was seeking to avoid a direct answer.  The questions were put clearly.  The replies were as clear.


3  How refreshing was one listener's response.  All three players (questioner and responders) were seeking to illuminate.  All spoke clear.  None repeated; none needed to: it was sufficient to say something once, just once.  


4  And there were no pictures to get in the way.  It would have been irrelevant, it would have been a distraction, to have seen any of the contributors.  What mattered was what was said not what the speaker looked like.  Further, there were no interruptions.  The two respondents spoke to the point, knowledgeably, unhesitatingly, fluently.


5  Ah, said the listener, what a contrast to the exchanges on Any Questions yesterday evening.  Repetitions, interruptions, an absence of calm.  

A Seat at the Opera

1  Something to be savoured.  Instead of standing at the back of the stalls, the customary position, I watched the current ROH production of Rigoletto from the comfort of a seat close to the front.  Instead of being in Covent Garden, I was in The Playhouse, an independent cinema in Uckfield, one of the many places to which the live production was being transmitted.

2  Because I had enjoyed a previous live performance, from the customary position, I bought my ticket for the transmission (at twice the price for the standing ticket at Covent Garden).  Though I am familiar with the radio transmissions from the Metropolitan Opera, I had not taken my seat for a live transmission in a cinema.  Suffice it to say that I will be attending further transmissions at that cinema in that small town in rural Sussex.

3  The whole experience was stunning.  Last year I attended an open-air screening at Somerset House of Billy Budd.  Oh, those close-ups of Claggart as he sung of his hatred of Billy, of the other principals.  The effect of the close-ups was to strengthen the drama.  In the interval, when we exchanged our impressions, we agreed that, compared with the live performance, the drama had been strengthened whilst the effect of the music had been weakened.  We had seen Billy, the saintly Billy, as we had not seen him before.

4  So it was at Uckfield.  I was closer to Rigoletto than ever before, to the Count, and to Gilda.  I, the whole audience could see their singing as well as hear it.  We could also see so clearly how the singing was being completed by their acting.  And the music, you ask?  Ah, there was plenty of that. I recall being gripped by the drama, by the text.  I also recall my expectation of being entranced as Rigoletto, switches from being a man burdened by Monterone's curse (quel vecchio maledivami) to being a father (Ma in altr'uomo qui mi cangio) and the sublime joy when that expectation ws realised.  Drama, singing, and music.  On the big screen, in close-up.

5   Of course, there were the tutorials as well.  Oh yes.  When the director spoke about the Count (Giovin, giocondo, si possente, bello), she spoke of a 'destructive force of nature', amoral, uncaring.  He gets the best tune, and he is untouched by the damage he wreaks upon others.  We remember the Count as he sings (La donna è mobile) untroubled, unknowing.  I also remember the conductor as, in rehearsal, he takes the Count through the stresses which are to be placed on the lines of (a part of) an aria.  A careful, detailed rehearsal.  I also recall the film of the Count on his way to the opera house, on a sleek, powerful motor-cycle, in matching motor-cycle kit. 

6  We remember Rigoletto as he holds the dying, and dead Gilda in his arms.  Though he sought to secure the death of his master, it is his nobility that we take from the opera-house or the cinema.  In those last minutes on stage, he personifies the grieving father.  When first we see him, he is the jester, the one who wounds.  When we leave him he is every father who has to bury a daughter, an only daughter.  I remember Rigoletto as a man who was cursed (quel vecchio maledivani).

7  Now is Rigoletto-on-screen a substiture for Rigoletto-on-stage or a complement to it.  Think about it.

Everything's OK`

1  There are times when one knows that everything is going to be all right.  The place is right, so is the company, and so was the production of Rigoletto at the ROH earlier in the week.  It was just good to be in our customary positions, standing at the back of the stalls looking directly forward to the stage.  

2  From the Count's entry, we were gripped.  That entry leads quickly to the first notable aria of the opera, Questa o quello, a pulsing commitment to perpetual motion from one woman to another.  'Obligation and vows of devotion,/I detest them like cruel diseases./Let the faithful keep faith it he pleases'.  The count sets the tone of the court.  The courtiers take up the refrain, the house is filled with the driving lines and rhythms.  We're on our way.  

3  The entry of the eponymous hunchback strengthened the grip.  Familiar though we were with the hunchback, deformed in body, twisted in mind, as the licenced, bitter jester, we watched and we listened.  And we were ready for the  metamorphosis as the approached his house for there, as he sang, he could be another man.  He could be a father, a most loving one.

4  Without a doubt, a father who is at odds with a daughter should buy two tickets for this performance (or any one close to it in quality).  Both should then listen to the love between the fictional father and daughter.  In the house, there was no need to attend to the words as the music expressed the mutual love between a hunchback and a confined, vulnerable young daughter in a way no words could match. 

5  And we are ready to weep (silenty) as Rigoletto turns to his daughter's duenna Ah veglia, o donna questo fiore and asks, directs her to guard his daughter, his flower.  'Keep her safe from all danger/Keep her innocent and fair'.  The house was silent.  From someone so deformed as Rigoletto came a achingly beautiful aria. Meanwhile, the duenna has betrayed and will betray her trust.

6  We watched and listened, not missing a jot. We were watching a Hobbesian world but listening to a blissful one.  Abduction, rape in the guise of seduction, betrayal, execution, curses, assassination by arrangement.  The lovely young daughter was untouched of course, but so too, in private, was her mis-shapen father.  The priapic count, the assassin and his predatory sister were also untouched: for them their immorality was just a way of living.  It was the father who was left to grieve, as we left the house feeling for him and waiting to meet him again.  

7  Early on in the opera he was the sardonic, stinging jester-beetle.  At home, he is different.  He is loved and loving.  And so he is vulnerable.  His daughter, his flower is stolen, is abused.  We feel for the man.  We continue to do so in his continuing distress.  We think of him not as the sardonic jester but as a father.

8  Everything has turned out right, just as we knew, right at the start, it would.  As the months pass, even the years, we shall recall fewer and fewer of the notes but we shall recall the music of the evening, one in which - did I tell you - that everything, but everything, was just right.

A Memorable Day

1  Yes, the day was the anniversary of my birth. The marking of the day began with a slow, companionable breakfast, complemented by The Times and The Guardian.  It continued with a journey to London, to St Clement Danes church, close to the junction of the Strand and Fleet Street.  

2  Though St Clement Danes was not damaged by the Great Fire, Sir Christopher Wren was invited to rebuild it.  Accordingly, it is the first of the Wren churches as one approaches the City from the Strand.  As we were intent on visiting Wren churches, we crossed the road and entered.  We had begun our exploration.

3  From St Clement Danes to St Brides, close to the other end of Fleet Street.  From there to St Andrew by the Wardrobe, to St Mary Aldermary, where we rested.  Over the road we saw the red dome of St Stephen Walbrook, our next stop.  And then we retraced our steps to Fleet Street and to the Temple Church.  Six churches, six out of many more.  

4  Each one a joy to visit, when there is time to sit, to muse, to look.  St Clement Danes, which was destroyed by enemy action of 10 May 1941, is now the official church of the Royal Air Force.  Outside, there is a statue to Sir Arthur ('Bomber') Harris and further beyond one to WE Gladstone.  Inside, there are banners and coats of arms.  St Brides was destroyed in the same air raid.  All that remained were the tower, and the walls.  The tower is surmounted by a steeple, one with fire octangonal stages - the model for wedding cakes.  Nowadays, the church is surrounded by high buildings, yet it and the contiguous green space continues to be a quiet, peaceful place.  

5  St Andrew by the Wardrobe?  It is sited close to the factory (we'd say) where the King's costumes were made and stored.  On the wall is a copy of the bill of Dissolution of the priory  together with a translation.  The King's lawyers, be assured, left nothing to chance.  In sum,they left nothing.  

6  From the outside, next to a main road, St Mary Aldermary, we agreed, looked down-at-heel.  Yet, we turned back on ourselves, walked up the steps, and went through the nondescript doorway.  Of course, we knew what to expect, a magnificent plaster ceiling.  What we hadn't expected was the sofa against the back wall, a place where two visitors could sit and view the ceiling from end to end.  We sat; we admired the ceiling and the slender columns.  All one had to do was to step inside.


7  A little way along the pavement and, over the road, the green dome could be seen, the green dome and three-stage steeple of St Stephen Walbrook.  Remember the name for here is what is written in a guide-book: A church which has been described as having the most perfectly-proportioned interior in the world, St Stephen Walbrook has the power to take one's breath away.  Full of light, its design testifies to Wren's background as a mathematician, with rectangles, squares, circles, semi-circles, and triangles creating a wornderful egometrical harmony.  The dome and the elegant classical columns are truely inspirational.  

8  The sixth and last church was the Temple church.  From there we went for our afternoon tea.  An occasion for different rituals. 

 

Adriana Lecouvreur

1 At the time, I felt that I could understand why the opera had been left in the cupboard, disregarded. The setting in Act 1 put me in mind of Noises Off. But in this instance there was an order, unflappingly maintained by Michonnet, the stage manager. I understood what he was doing, and I sympathised with his undeclared love for Adriana. Bustle, bustle. As the plot developed, however, so its oddness became apparent. That oddness - or Now remind me again what's going on - continued into Act 2. A lover who was playing on two pitches. And elderly princess. A room into which people hurried lest they be discovered. Ah, Act 2 of The Marriage. There'll be a quarrel, maybe, or some other way of igniting, of energising the proceedings. No, not tonight. No now,not later.

2 Alas, I was wrong. The Independent told me that I had attended a five-star production. The singing, the drama - neither was weak. Ms Gheorghiu had been super. She had been matched by the lover. I took the critique to heart. I reminded myself that the seeming waywardness of the plot had been overlaid, had been swamped by the music and singing, and by the playing. Remember, I told myself, concentrate upon the music. Recall the passion of the concluding embraces, physical and musical. I held up my arms and conceded.

3 No, come back. I was right all the time. The plot was clunkey; now whilst I didn't understand what was meant by the term, I understood from the context that I had been probably right about the plot. It was evident too from The Times that the monologue - the first time I call recall one carrying so much weight, being delivered by a principal in an opera; for that matter, the first time I can recall one in an opera - did not set aside the deficiencies which preceded and followed it. So the opera concluded, in Act 4, with the poisoning of Adriana by a bunch of violets. (The willing suspension of disbelief, you say. OK, OK. I admit I've swallowed much more in the opening minutes of Das Rheingeld. Yet a bunch of violets?) The poisoning does not prevent the dying embrace of A and the one-time lover of the Princess, she who sent the violets.) As the curtain fell, I felt that it was time to go home, that it was time to put the opera back in the cupboard.

4 Three reviews, three different reports and assessments. Of course, any one review can expose what the reader missed whilst watching the production. Three reviews can expose the extent to which different reviewers react differently to a production. It's helpful to keep a review, or three of them, as a trigger or triggers to one's own reflections as one returns to a production, soon after it or a long time after.

5 As I thought about the plot, I reminded myself that Cilea would have been thoroughly familiar with the La Traviata. He would also have been equally familiar with The Marriage. And so will be the audiences which will attend the future, few productions of Adriana L. They will have expectations about the drama, about the drives which impel behaviour, in particular conflictual behaviour. They will also have expectations about the imaginative content of a plot, a story.

6 Independent the newspaper may be, imaginative may be its front pages. On the particular matter in hand though I will stick to old Times.