Macbeth and Banquo appeared in kilts, old kharki battledress, and unbadged caps. Still, it didn't seem to matters as the witches - three sets of them - were living in three parked caravans. Lady McBeth, you ask? Svelte. Looked like the Roumanian dictator's wife. And poor old Duncan walked into a potting shed, there to be done to death. The settings, the costumes - both were a distraction for this member of the audience. The drama had to fight its way out.
An opera to listen to.
I put a comment such as this one on the Glyndebourne message board. So far, there has been no subsequent one about the production.
Derek, the world waits for your comment about P et M.
Don
Saturday, 26 May 2007
Monday, 21 May 2007
The Big Bike Ride
What a fine day it was. The weather was close to ideal for cycling. There was a good atmosphere at the start, in the grounds of Tonbridge Castle. And so we began the 100-mile bike ride. We rode towards the north, that is towards the North Downs (and Ups). My companion was cycling steadily, though there was scope for a little increase in speed on this initial stretch.
We spent the first hours going north. At last, we reached the river Medway. Upnor castle. We continued, up and down. At one time, we were cycling along the esplanade at Rochester, by the river.
And so we continued to the lunch stop, 50 miles from the beginning. My companion was tired and was intent on retiring from the ride. However, some food, some encouragement, and the realisation that rescue would still require a ride of about 15 miles to Tonbridge, on her own, prompted her to continue. At the next refreshment stop, there was further encouragement. There was also the recogntion that the event was a bike ride, that what mattered was completion (and not the time that was taken).
We cycled on. Soon after 1930 we cycled into Tonbridge castle again. One hundred miles. A medal, congratulations, and a goodie bag.
Ride accomplished. Looking forward to next year's one.
Don
#
We spent the first hours going north. At last, we reached the river Medway. Upnor castle. We continued, up and down. At one time, we were cycling along the esplanade at Rochester, by the river.
And so we continued to the lunch stop, 50 miles from the beginning. My companion was tired and was intent on retiring from the ride. However, some food, some encouragement, and the realisation that rescue would still require a ride of about 15 miles to Tonbridge, on her own, prompted her to continue. At the next refreshment stop, there was further encouragement. There was also the recogntion that the event was a bike ride, that what mattered was completion (and not the time that was taken).
We cycled on. Soon after 1930 we cycled into Tonbridge castle again. One hundred miles. A medal, congratulations, and a goodie bag.
Ride accomplished. Looking forward to next year's one.
Don
#
New forms
Yet more about P 'n M. The singing. No choruses. No melodies, no constantly-recurring musical phrases which act as a signature for the opera. Instead, each aria is sung slowly, as if each note is attached to a syllable. More Parsifal than Meistersingers. These slow songs from the members of the court - Melisande ? - contribute to the sense of the stultified court.
Don
Don
Saturday, 19 May 2007
Two exhibitions
A year ago, I posted the following blog. Having just re-read it, I thought it deserved to be published afresh. Here it is.
About once a month, two of us have a day in London. Buildings, plays, art galleries, walks, rides on the river. That sort of thing. A day - well, half a day - in London. The usual meeting-place is the Royal Academy, and so it was yesterday.
Neither of us had heard of Jacob van Ruisdael, a Dutch landscape painter, but his name has registered with us now. We were entranced by his landscapes. At first, what we saw we expected to see. There was an order about the land he showed. Neat hedges, orderly towns, a developed land. The surprises came when we were taken to the natural landscapes. A castle, a Gewrman one, sited on the top of a hill, a hill that was stood higher above the land in the picture than it did on the ground. The painter's imagination was at work. Amongst the Dutch, and the nearly-Dutch landscapes, was a painting of a highland stream (which could have been a Highland stream). Brown rocks, rushing waters, tree trunks about to be carried away. A wild, highland place. It was labelled Norway but, so we heard, van Ruisdael had never been to the country. The imagination was at work.
Seascapes too, and people. In one, the wind is blowing strongly. You can see it in the clouds, in the waves, and in the sailing boat, with its red sails, that is leaning periliously. A sand spit juts from the shore. It's narrow, so the waves will rush across it. No place for people. Yet, look closely, and notice the person near the end of the spit with a pram. A pram. Two other people walk side-by-side back to the shore as if they were walking along a promenade on a spring day. The power of the picture lies in the elements, the sea, the wind, the clouds. The people? As in some of the other ones, they are adjuncts. There can be an awkwardness about them. They are add-ons, and in some pictures that's what we heard they had been. They had been added on.
Keep the elemental and the imaginative in mind as you join us in The Gothic Imagination at Tate Ancient, our name for what others call Tate Britain. This exhibition is about the realisation of what we see and imagine in the dead of night. The pictures express the dark side. Fuesli is the name we now know. He painted The Nightmare, the painting that catches the eye on the advertisements for the exhibition. The young woman, n a muslin-like nightdress, lies asleep on a bed, uncovered by bedclothes. On her stomach sit an incubus, a mis-formed of the dark imagination. The creature is looking at us, and we do not know what the looks portends. A horse has pushed its head through the opening of what appears to be a tent. The eyes are white balls. Painted and shown to acclaim in the 1780s (I recall). Other pictures express equally unsettling images from the night-time imagination.
But what stunning exhibitions they were. How good to have the opportunity to see them, to see them in company so that there can be a discussion, a reflection. How good to be able to visit two such exhibitions in one day in London. And to roam around on buses. There's not just a lot to be said for London. There is everything.
Worth re-posting? I think so.
Don
About once a month, two of us have a day in London. Buildings, plays, art galleries, walks, rides on the river. That sort of thing. A day - well, half a day - in London. The usual meeting-place is the Royal Academy, and so it was yesterday.
Neither of us had heard of Jacob van Ruisdael, a Dutch landscape painter, but his name has registered with us now. We were entranced by his landscapes. At first, what we saw we expected to see. There was an order about the land he showed. Neat hedges, orderly towns, a developed land. The surprises came when we were taken to the natural landscapes. A castle, a Gewrman one, sited on the top of a hill, a hill that was stood higher above the land in the picture than it did on the ground. The painter's imagination was at work. Amongst the Dutch, and the nearly-Dutch landscapes, was a painting of a highland stream (which could have been a Highland stream). Brown rocks, rushing waters, tree trunks about to be carried away. A wild, highland place. It was labelled Norway but, so we heard, van Ruisdael had never been to the country. The imagination was at work.
Seascapes too, and people. In one, the wind is blowing strongly. You can see it in the clouds, in the waves, and in the sailing boat, with its red sails, that is leaning periliously. A sand spit juts from the shore. It's narrow, so the waves will rush across it. No place for people. Yet, look closely, and notice the person near the end of the spit with a pram. A pram. Two other people walk side-by-side back to the shore as if they were walking along a promenade on a spring day. The power of the picture lies in the elements, the sea, the wind, the clouds. The people? As in some of the other ones, they are adjuncts. There can be an awkwardness about them. They are add-ons, and in some pictures that's what we heard they had been. They had been added on.
Keep the elemental and the imaginative in mind as you join us in The Gothic Imagination at Tate Ancient, our name for what others call Tate Britain. This exhibition is about the realisation of what we see and imagine in the dead of night. The pictures express the dark side. Fuesli is the name we now know. He painted The Nightmare, the painting that catches the eye on the advertisements for the exhibition. The young woman, n a muslin-like nightdress, lies asleep on a bed, uncovered by bedclothes. On her stomach sit an incubus, a mis-formed of the dark imagination. The creature is looking at us, and we do not know what the looks portends. A horse has pushed its head through the opening of what appears to be a tent. The eyes are white balls. Painted and shown to acclaim in the 1780s (I recall). Other pictures express equally unsettling images from the night-time imagination.
But what stunning exhibitions they were. How good to have the opportunity to see them, to see them in company so that there can be a discussion, a reflection. How good to be able to visit two such exhibitions in one day in London. And to roam around on buses. There's not just a lot to be said for London. There is everything.
Worth re-posting? I think so.
Don
Pelleas and Melisande, again
Another thought about the opera. Nothing much happens. Boy meets girl by a pool (though the girl has thrown or dropped a crown into the pool, so perhaps there must be something special about the girl). Boy marries girl, still not knowing much about her. Girl and boy's brother meet and fall in love. Later, boy suspects girl of infidelity. Surprises them. Kill brother. Regrets. Everyone regrets. Just an everyday story of muddled love.
The characters come with little or nothing in the way of biography, or baggage. Melisande is evidently lively, unconstrained: the red dress tells us that. She enters the constrained, sylised routines of the court. The competition for her will press against the courtly constraints. We soon gather, from costuming, and from movement, that the members of the court contain their passions.
The long-haired, red-dressed Melisande is the agent of change, all unwittingly. By the end of the opera, the boy is sufficiently roused to kill his brother and publicity to regret what he has done.
Derek, what do you think?
Don
The characters come with little or nothing in the way of biography, or baggage. Melisande is evidently lively, unconstrained: the red dress tells us that. She enters the constrained, sylised routines of the court. The competition for her will press against the courtly constraints. We soon gather, from costuming, and from movement, that the members of the court contain their passions.
The long-haired, red-dressed Melisande is the agent of change, all unwittingly. By the end of the opera, the boy is sufficiently roused to kill his brother and publicity to regret what he has done.
Derek, what do you think?
Don
Looking ahead to a Big Bike Ride
A big one? Well, it will be for me: 160k (100m) circular ride round some of the flatter parts of Kent - along the Medway - and, for a certainty, up and down some of the hillier parts. The ride has been entitled The Castles Ride, as it will begin at Tonbridge castle, and take in Upnor, Rochester, Leeds, Sissinghurst, and probably other, castles.
A tour of Castles in Kent. A passing tour, that is. No time to stop, you know; the steady pedalling must not be interrupted.
Tomorrow, there will be an account of The Bike Ride, Looking Back.
Don
A tour of Castles in Kent. A passing tour, that is. No time to stop, you know; the steady pedalling must not be interrupted.
Tomorrow, there will be an account of The Bike Ride, Looking Back.
Don
Thursday, 17 May 2007
The white and the red
In last night's production of Pelleas et Melisande at the ROH, the members of the court, including Pelleas, were dressed alike in a Pierrot costume. And they walked slowly, almost like puppets. Meanwhile, Melisande wore a long red dress, and the tresses of her hair fell upon her back. It wasn't hard to compare the stiffness of the court with the free movement of the young woman, a young woman who, when first met, was looking in a pool for a crown, who spoke nothing of her story and of whom her husband, six months, after marriage, knew as little then as he knew when first he met her. One feature of the production.
An unusual pleasure
It's not often that I am almost the youngest member of a group. In recent years, I have had that pleasure once a year, and so it has been this year. Earlier in the week, I attended what will be the last of the formal (top table, distinguished guest) Grapple re-unions.
Grapple? The name given to the testing of thermo-nuclear weapons at Christmas Island, an island in the Pacific south of Hawaii.. ( Yes, I know: you found Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean but not in the Pacific. No, the island hasn't moved. The name has been changed to Kiribati.)
The first successful test took place on 15 May 1957, 50 years ago. We - the Grapplers - marked the occasion by our re-union in the Royal Air Force Club, by a 'bombe' for dessert, and by a rich cake on which was drawn an outline of the Island.
We talked about the Island. We looked at a display. We watched a film (and put our names down for the CD). We listened to our master telling us what a good job we had done, what an extraordinarily good time we had done. And we accepted the compliments of our guest, Lord Carrington.
Just a good, companionable time.
Grapple? The name given to the testing of thermo-nuclear weapons at Christmas Island, an island in the Pacific south of Hawaii.. ( Yes, I know: you found Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean but not in the Pacific. No, the island hasn't moved. The name has been changed to Kiribati.)
The first successful test took place on 15 May 1957, 50 years ago. We - the Grapplers - marked the occasion by our re-union in the Royal Air Force Club, by a 'bombe' for dessert, and by a rich cake on which was drawn an outline of the Island.
We talked about the Island. We looked at a display. We watched a film (and put our names down for the CD). We listened to our master telling us what a good job we had done, what an extraordinarily good time we had done. And we accepted the compliments of our guest, Lord Carrington.
Just a good, companionable time.
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