What's going on?

1 Well, it's a dance. Her step-father, seriously Numero Uno, asks her to dance. She refuses. He asks again, and again. He offers big, big money. He swears that he will give her what she asks for, up to half the kingdom (just to see her dance). So we listen to the preparatory music, and then she dances.

2 Now on a stage a seven-minute (or so) solo dance is a challenge. It's probably a particular challenge to opera singers. So far as I have seen, the performer can go round in circles, can go from side to side, and from front to back. Clothes on, clothes off? A question, and we're all waiting for the answer. Years ago Maria Ewing took off seven coverings and then stood naked, hands in the air. All in the cause of the development of the narrative, you understand. You see if Salomé was dressed for the part then it does look as if she expected the lascivious old step-dad to ask her, doesn't it? And not only that because it also looks as if she was prepared and knew what to do. It wasn't the first time she had danced for the old sod. Oh, no. Just listen to Herodias.

3 So she's dancing. Everyone is looking on. There's no talking on stage. And there's no talking in the auditorium. So what about the opera? What's going on? A mid-opera entertainment, according to the fashion of the ballet in La Traviata? What do we learn from these seven minutes, about seven percent of the total performance-time? Read on.

4 Yesterday evening, we learned what was going on. The on-stage onlookers were removed from our sight as the stage revolved. Undistracted, we watched the young woman and her step-father. We watched as she put on a dress and, with his help, took it off. We watched as he watched her and as they joined. A private display, a private pleasure. Lest we failed to read the performance, the backdrops explained. The libation too told us about soiling, about who had been soiled. So we learned that the invitation to 'Dance for me, Salomé' was not a first invitation. No, indeed. There had been previous dances, previous displays, previous pleasures. The presentation of the dance made sense. It was part of the development of the opera.

4.1 And it made things so much easier for the dancer. Instead of being required to perform a solo dance for seven minutes, the actor was now part of a duet, both members of the duet having a contribution to make to the developing story of a step-father's abuse of his power over his step-daughter.

5 Now, think afresh about the relationship between Salomé and the Baptist. Think afresh.

Preparing for Salomé

We are about to visit a shocking opera, shocking even for the worldly-wise. After all, the central line of the narrative is the abuse of a young girl by her father. Herod, most worldly-wise, is so keen that she should dance for him that he offers her anything she asks for, even half his kingdom. Of course, it will not have been the first time that she has danced for him. He knows what to expect; he knows that, if she does dance, the performance will be worth the price. And remember, she will dance for him in public. Herod's court is that sort of place.

Alongside the eroticism place the Baptist. The profane and the sacred. From the depths the Baptist thunders against the lasciviousness of the court. It is the young woman, brought up in the court, abused there, who responds. The one-sided contest begins. The young woman is armed with bare flesh and the prospect of unconstrained eroticism. The Baptist is armed with the certainties of the Word. Of course, it is the young woman, so lightly armed, who loses. Both lose, the Baptist his head, the young woman her life.

And we are to witness the contest, played out within the cruelities of the court.

Another fine bike ride

1 In Westerham, in the sun. In the sun, sitting outside a café, by a table on which rested a pot of tea, scones, butter, and jam. Yes, you’ve guessed. We were on our Sunday bike ride. A Sunday ride with a difference. At 0900, the time when a Forest Row Bike Club member, is preparing to leave the house, it was cold. A well-prepared biker was a well-covered one. No shorts, you understand.

2 Still, for some of us, as we awaited the main body, there was time to notice East Court, the Town offices, as it stood in the sunlight. A house, just as well sited on the rise, must have been enveloped in sunshine. And the large pig who came to the fence, and whose nose was tickled by one of us, also seemed to be at ease in the sun. Sunshine, bright light, bare trees, and a penetrating cold as we rolled down the first of the hills – we were on the way which would lead, eventually, to that time in the sun in Westerham.

3 Besides the cold, we had the ice to worry about. Once or twice, it made sense to walk carefully where it would have been impossible to ride carefully. Still, the swans on the lake seemed to be at ease with the lake. For a moment, it was possible to believe that the three of them had been caught in the ice, that they were waiting for the sun to bring them back to life.

4 Along familiar and unfamiliar lanes and narrow roads somewhere in Surrey, then in East Sussex, and then in Kent – a Three Counties ride. Easy riding, in the sun, the initial coldness having given away to a comfortable warmth, whilst moving. A horse was ahead, with a groomed tail that almost reached the ground. What a fine animal. Along the road by a reservoir. Bird-watchers on either side. One elderly man walked along with a large tripod and telescope; he was followed by an elderly woman – an evident pair – with the binoculars. The herons, meanwhile, just got on with whatever they were doing.

5 A T-junction. Doleful choices: Ide Hill to the left, a steep hill; York hill to the right, a steeper hill. Of course, our way was to the right. There was a long lead to the hill itself. We climbed about 100 metres, with the bulk of the rise being concentrated in a short horizontal distance. A large cog on the back wheel enabled one elderly rider to climb slowly to the point where the top was visible; from there, the only way really was up for to hesitate, to falter was to fall into the road.

6 To Westerham, to take our places, in the sun, outside the café. Churchill sat before us. He was 65 when he became Prime Minister (and Minister of Defence) in May 1940. Two years later, in late 1942, he was flown from London to Alexandria in a bomber, from there to Teheran, and on to Moscow. And back again. Long, noisy journeys for a man in his late 60s, but he carried them off well. He also had a 15-hour flight in a flying boat, an altogether different flying experience. He insisted, by the way, on being served his meals according to his ‘stomach time’. Beyond him, with his back to us, General Wolfe faced the oncoming traffic with a sword held high in the air. For the French, the loss of Quebec, in 1759, was a decisive event in the destruction of the French empire in North America. (The Peace Treaty, 1763, allowed the French to keep two small islands off Newfoundland, two islands which remain French to this day.)

7 For two of the group, the return journey began with a climb up Crockham Hill, then the vibrant swoop down the other side. To Edenbridge, to Marsh Green, to Dormansland, and the sharp climb up to East Grinstead. Fortyone good miles, 65 km. What another fine ride we were lead into. Many thanks to our leader.

Other Christmases

1 The room was decorated. There were white table-cloths on the tables. The cutlery was placed, and so were the crackers. The diners took their places. Some had come specially for the lunch. The crackers were pulled, and the hats were worn. In the kitchen, the volunteer cooks set out the dishes of food ready for serving. One placed the vegetables on the plate and then passed the plate so that the turkey could be added. Once complete, the plate was given to a volunteer waiter who placed it in front of a diner. One by one, the diners began to eat the Christmas lunch. A splendid effort. A tribute to generosity at Christmas. Yet there is one reservation to be entered: the plates carried too much food. There had been abundant food, all donated, to cook. There was thus abundant food to serve. And so the plates were piled high with food. Alas, generally speaking, the diners could not cope.

1.1 I wonder if the generous cooks served so much on a plate at their own Christmas dinners, later on that day. At home, perhaps the vegetables were set upon the table, and each took a portion according to preference. In the communal dining room, perhaps there was an inclination to see satisfaction, particularly the diner's satisfaction at Christmas, as being derived from the quantity that could be eaten. 'There you are. Get outside that. It's Christmas'.

2 The two brothers, one 34 the other 28, now live in a first-floor flat, having lived all their lives with their father in a terraced house in a quiet Close. On their father's sudden death, they were required to move. Their joint income of £140 a week is derived from State benefits. In addition, they receive full remission from rent and from council tax. However, the income must then meet all other expenses, including heating and housekeeping. The elder one has been unemployed for the years that I have known him. The younger one receives income support, being certified as unfit to be employed.

2.1 I wonder how they will get on. At present, I visit, as their father was a client. But they have no claim on SSAFA or on other military charities. I can be companionable, but I cannot provide any substantial help. I will visit, of course, over the next month or two.

3 According to the young woman, aged about 26, she had fled from her marital home, with her five-year-old daughter and six-month-old son, in fear of her husband, 22, a soldier. She will soon occupy a flat, one which her father presently rents to tenants. But she will have to organise her life as a single mother, on the assumption that she will not return to her husband. I visited her before Christmas, when I was able to make a small cash gift, one which was well received. I am due to visit her again tomorrow.

Preparing for Parsifal (1)

The emergence of Parsifal
First, a knowledgeable speaker dealt with the emergence of Parsifal and with some of the major themes. Seventeen (or more) years in the making so it seems. Wagner drew upon a poem by Wolfram, a medieval poet, and set the opera in Spain, on the border between the Arab and the Christian worlds. As Tristan is about erotic love, and The Mastersingers is about the love of music, so Parsifal is about compassionate love, about the tale of a blameless fool, Parsifal, who becomes wise through pity. [I will better understand that comment later on.] An opera about sensuality vis-a-vis spirituality.

[The background.
The devout king, Titurel, reeived two wondrous relics from the angels, the Holy Grail and the spear with which Jesus's side pierced. They are kept in the Castle of the Grail. Tinturel founded a Brotherhood of Knights who, miraculously strengthened by the relics, ride out into the world to help those in distress. Klingsor, a knight, sought admission to the brotherhood, but he could not fulfil the law of chastity and so castrated himself in order to kill his lust. Tinturel refused him.

In revenge, Klingsor transformed part of the surounding wilderness into a magic castle and garden. There, he has created bewitching young maidens whose pupose is to seduce the knights, as Klingsor intends to subvert the brotherhood and so possess the Grail.

Amfortas, having taken over as king, saw that the knights were falling into Klingsor's power, and, armed with the sacred spear, he went to do battle with Klingsor. However, he was seduced by a mysterious maiden. Klingsor seized the spear and wounded Amfortas in his side. The wound will not close. Amfortas is in agony.]

[Themes
the conflict between the sacred, the chaste knights, and the profane; the entrapping maidens; that conflict at the higher level of the new, Christian, religion and the old religion; Amfortas's failure to uphold the virtues of the Christian brotherhood, his vulnerability, his wound; how will the flow of blood from the wound be staunched, how will his agony be ended?]

A one-armed Amfortas
I will remember the performer, Falk Struckmann, who is to play Amfortas for his demonstration of the day-to-day tension which can exist between a performer and a director. In the current production, Amfortas is to be reduced to the use of one arm (the other being supported in some way and not available for expressive use). But, said the singer, I want to us both my arms to complement the music and the text. I remember the way he stood up, sang a line, and threw both his hands forwards and upwards.

He developed the point. The performer (the singer, the actor) has a view of the text and of the way to express an understanding of what the text requires. The performer both sings and acts. However, the director too has a view. There can be a tension between the two, a tension which has to be resolved. For this particular performer, the balance of advantage lies with leaving the performer to act as the performer feels. Nowadays, in his view, a concert performance where the performer has control both of voice and of gesture can be more powerful than a staged one.

Kundry
Asked about her sense of the production, she asked ‘Where in the world will you find such a Parsifal?. We have three Wotans on stage and Bernard in the pit’. (According to a piece in The Times, Bernard Haitink, on being asked what was the major requirement for the successful conducting of The Ring, replied ‘Comfortable shoes’.) In her opinion, it was really rare to have such fine singers on stage. She spoke about the clarity of the singing. ‘In Germany, I have never heard such singers where you can understand what they sing’.

She also spoke about the challenge of the part, the challenge of interpreting the part and the technical accomplishment which the part calls for.

It was good, I thought, to hear both performers as they talked about their roles in this production. Of course, I recorded but a small part of what they said. Now, as I key these notes, and with a recent conversation about the event in mind, it strikes me that there should be a ROH blog, one open to the performers as well as the public. I will put this idea to the ROH.

The flower maidens
There they were, all six of them, seated on chairs, under the direction of David Stylus, the voice coach, at the piano. It was Stylus who reminded us that Wagner said ‘Learn the text first, so as to speak it completely, before singing a note’.

As he and the singers worked, I was exposed to the attention which is given to the enunciation.

By the end, I had been introduced to Parsifal. In Stylus’s phrase my imagination had been sufficiently fired to post these notes and to give myself the job of reading the text before the performance. Read the text and thus be prepared to see and how that text is realised on stage.

As I complete these notes, I realise just how slightly they represent all that I heard and saw during the event. A review of the opera, illustrated by musical extracts; two of the performers talked about their roles and, to some extent, about their work in opera; finally, a director (coach) worked with six willing and professional performers – such was the content of the two hours. And yet my notes are as they are, a slight echo of those two hours.

My own feeling is of how much I enjoyed the event. I have been roused to think about Parsifal before the performance, to look at some of the websites, to read some (at least) of the libretto, to think about what is going on in Parsifal. Time spent in preparation is indeed rarely wasted.

Don't go away

No, don't go away. The performance will continue. It may take a little time, but then things do these days. Be assured that the words will continue to flow, about Das Rheingold.

A review of a review

The days since Das Rheingold have passed, and still there is nothing on the blog about it, despite a pageful of notes in a notebook. There's a lot to say about Rheingold, about the gods and the humans, about the initial violation - the theft of the gold from the Rhinemaidens, about the moral decay of the gods, about greed, about betrayal, and, for that matter, about the world up there, about the world here, and about the world down there.

The programme which accompanied the production at the ROH cost £15, a tidy sum for those who had paid just £25 for a ticket to all four operas. So the free cast-lists are the tangible mementoes. A mistake, I feel, as it is in the programme, the £15 one, where we can - or could - expect to find a discussion about the meaning of the operas and about the presentation of the operas.

Instead, I have been left with a review in The Times. There were close to 500 words in the review, along with a star-rating, four out of five. The rating told me that the reviewer thought highly of Das Rheingold. And what about the 500 words, you ask. Well, the first paragraph accounted for 76 words without saying anything about the production. The following 120 words were about John Tomlinson's performance. Those two paragraphs accounted for 40% of the review. The reviewer's opinion of the conductor's and the orchestra's performance accounted for another 120 words. The same number was given to the staging. Thus, along with a couple of sentences about the reviewer's overall opinion, the review.

Five hundred words and the stars. Well, there's not much that can be done with 500 words, so we can't expect much. Richard Morrison did what he was asked to. The reader learns straightaway, from the four starts,that he approved of the production. A reading may then provide one or two observations on the production which catch the eye. 'Think of the gods as dismayed 19th century aristocrats, ...' is one such observation.

However, I should have bought the programme. What the reviewer wrote about the orchestra is beyond me. I can repeat what he said, but I cannot understand it (nor do I become equipped to recognise the feature if it occurs again when I am in the theatre). It is the programme which would have contained the discussions, the reflections, that would have made sense to me.

And still I have not put anything on the blog about my experience of Das Rheingold. Instead, I have cleared my thoughts about a related matter. Perhaps, just perhaps, I am closer to a beginning.

Don