One opera, two views

1 Here's the first paragraph from one review;

Well, the weather was better than expected. Sunshine, no rain, with only a gathering evening chill. As for Glyndebourne's opening production of the season: worse, much worse. Just the thought of Danielle de Niese, that magnetic Cleopatra from Giulio Cesare, singing and swaying, was enough for every ticket for the performances of Monteverdi's last opera to be snapped up. But her Poppea is no Cleopatra; she's not fun, not sexy, no creature of infinite variety. Nor is Robert Carsen's production.

2 No doubt, you can guess where that review is leading to. Yes, you're right. Now, read the first paragraph from a different review:

'Without doubt, the sexiest piece ever written,' is how director Robert Carsen described L'Incoronazione di Poppea in a recent interview. His new staging of Monteverdi's masterpiece, however, though at times explicit, could hardly be considered erotica. It is dark, detached stuff, sometimes disturbing, and often confused.

3 People, including reviewers, see different things; sometimes, they see the same things but give different weights to those different things, or aspects. ('Yes, yes, I too noticed that but I dont' think it matters much or, at any rate, that it matters as much as you think it does.') I wonder what this correspondent will see, will emphasise. The first paragraph, remember, sets the direction. Read the first paragraph and receive the thrust of the reviewer's estimation. Look again at that wicked concluding sentence in the first example.

4 And the second? The use of the opening quotation to direct the attention, in this case, perhaps, to heighten the expectation, is a common device. The issue of the sexiness of the piece having been established, the view will either be endorsed or contradicted. If the quotation has heightened the expectation of all those who saw Niese as Cleopatra or who read about her, then the contradiction will be all the more disappointing. And there is the nice distinction, one which readers can be assumed to make, between the explicit and the erotic.

5 So what will be this correspondent's first paragraph. Watch this space.

To the Island

1 Yesterday was Reunion day, the day of the Christmas Island reunion. Once again, I put on my Grapple tie along with a blazer. To the station, to the RAF Club, a place which one chum described as 'home from home'. And so it is. A place where a chap feels at home, you understand. A place where some 40 other chaps, each wearing the Grapple tie, assembled yesterday for the first of the reunions after last year's concluding one.

1.1 Yes, you have read the previous sentence correctly. Last year, the reunion was held on the fiftieth anniversary of the first successful thermo-nuclear test. There was a top table. Lord Carringdon was the guest speaker. An AVM presided, as he had done for years. Fifty years on, though, the reunion was to be the last one of that kind. Yet the small organising committee, without the AVM, organised yesterday's, less formal event.

2 As ever, the event was just a pleasure. We sat at five circular tables in the ballroom. Instead of being served at table, we lined up for a plate of curried meat and things. The conversation was as lively and as reminiscent as ever. One of the chums had visited the Island since last year's reunion: he and his wife and his daughter spent a week there. There was little to do, yet each was tired by about 2100 and slept well until they rose about 0600. A week out of life.

3 I chatted to an elderly man - we're all elderly - who was a navigator on the Canberra, piloted by our AVM as a young man, which sampled the air after the burst. He spoke about the flights, about his time on the Island. Soon after he returned to the UK, he left the RAF and joined a local police force where he remained for 30 years. Yet it was his time on the Island which remained with him. We all have clear recollections of the Island; we remember our time there as a special time. (For those who contracted cancers of one sort of other, time on the Island was bad time.)

4 In my role as the Master Blogger, I spoke about our Grapple Reunion blog. It will be our standard channel of communication. So everyone should join. To those who are hesitant about IT I offered the best of advice, namely, ask your grandson or grand-daughter.

5 And we concluded with an hour-long film (on DVD) of Grapple Zulu, a collection of tests, ground and air, which included the first successful air burst, the event which we celebrated last year. At the end of the hour, there was a round of applause. And everyone was given a copy of the DVD.

6 Look on the Court page of today's Daily Telegraph. Look for Service luncheons.

7 Maytime, springtime, Island time.

The following account was keyed at the end of the first day in Berlin. A week later, the visit to Wansee remains the event which has left the strongest impression. Those people assembled in that building to give authority to, to initiate the final solution to the Jewish question, namely, the murder of the Jews within the German empire. The meeting was of one mind. The review of the scale of the task, the allocation of responsibilities - such matters were agreed. Having done their business, the members had time for a celebratory drink and a companionable lunch. And, in due time, Adolf Eichmann compiled the comprehensive note of the meeting.

28/04/2008.
Schoenfeld airport, a quiet place. A short walk from the aircraft to the airport buildings. Passports, please. A walk just as short to the baggage carosel, already turning. There were the bags. There were our hosts. Yet another short walk to their car. We were on our way from the airport to Kopenick, a district of Berlin which I remember as the setting for the tale of The Captain of Kopenick.

Along the way, the road ran alongside a railway; beyond the railway was the other carriageway; beyond that was the cycle path. No helmets, I noticed. Woods on both sides of the road; the trees were in leaf, but there was a sense of uncultivated woods. Not quite higgledypiggley woods, but tending that way. In Kopenick, some of the buildings were old, that is, perhaps 1920s, or earlier. Others were later, perhaps post-1945, built perhaps in the early days of the GDR. And the informal decoration (otherwise known as grafitti) was evident; indeed, it was unmissable.

A well-built house, with a cellar and an attic. A garden, a patio, and an uncertain legal status. The owners, the hosts, paid a monthly rent to someone whom they have never met. Years ago, in the days of the GDR, gthe rent had been paid to a government body. The Wall came down; the GDR ceased to exist as a state; the rent was not paid for some time; there were instances of pre-GDR owners claiming and taking possession of what they said were their properties. When the present occupants were told of a claim on their property by a putative owner who, they were told, was not interested in occupation but in rent, they did not contest the claim. Instead, they paid, and have continued to pay, the rent.

Neither of the tenants, our hosts, speaks English; my companion is bi-lingual; I do not speak German. I am at ease. The conversation flows between the three; occasionally, I am mentioned, or I am told what has been said. Most of the time, as we sit, talk, and eat on the patio, I am able to sit quietly under the large sun-shade. I am excused from the claims of conversation; I can look as if I am following the conversation or I can attend to my own thoughts.

The discussion about the afternoon’s activity is resolved, eventually. When asked, through my companionable intermediary, for my preferences, I mentioned Potsdam and Wansee, the place where the infamous conference was held in January 1942, with Heinrich Heydrich in the chair. A long way, I gather; a journey from one side of Berlin to the other. Re-think. And think again. Wansee it will be. To the station. An all-day ticket on the overground railway costs about £5. Off we jolly well go.

The fifteen-minute ride from Kopenick to the interchange station in the city provides sufficient time to register the extent, the pervasiveness, of the informal decoration. No flat surface along the railway is spared. The activities of our decorators, within Southern Region, are much less extensive. Particularly eye-catching was the injunction, in the largest of capital letters, to . Comforting, I thought. Imitation, as you know, is flattering. Yet more woods, yet again the absence of cultivated land on either side of the railway. Instead, the sense again that the estate, the railway estate, calls for a general tidying-up, a general cleansing.

We achieved the simple change; the second train will take us through the centre to the south-west, to Wansee lake. Recently-constructed or recently–improved stations; stations in need of improvement; the constancy of the informal decoration. Yet more woods. And Wansee. A station that was built, perhaps, about 100 years ago, a station which, like others, could do with decoration of the formal kind.

A short bus-ride, using our railway all-day tickets, to the large house where Heydrich and the others met on 20 January 1942 to register their commitments, and that of the military and civil bodies whom they represented, to a joint endeavour to settle the Jewish question once and for all. The resources of the state were to be available in a co-ordinated way to achieve the extermination of the Jews from the Reich and from the occupied territories, particularly the Eastern territories and Russia.

The notice at the gate said that admission to the exhibition was free, but the gate was locked. The bell was pressed. We pushed the gate open. And we walked to the onetime large house which overlooked the lake and which, in 1942, was part of the SS estate. The ground-floor rooms are now given over to the documents, the translations, the explanatory texts, in German and English, to the photographs and texts which tell the story of anti-Semitism in Germany, to the consequences for the Jews of the appointment of Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933, to the conference, and its results.

The familiar story, the familiar events; reminders of people and events; the presentation of additional material. Some six million people were murdered. It was industrial murder. The killing-camps had to be built. The people had to be collected and sent to the camps, from those distant parts, by rail. The railway stock had to be allocated; the costs of the transportation had to be assessed and paid by one of the departments of state to the Reichsbahn. The gas chambers had to be designed; the blue-prints had to be approved, at on-site meetings, no doubt; the killing-chambers had to be installed, and tested, no doubt. The names of those who were transported had to be recorded, so that the state would know they no longer existed. A big job.

The exhibition at Wansee, in the very rooms, overlooking the lake, reminds us of this big job. The resources of the state were allocated to the elimination, the murder, of millions of people. And the silent, documentary exhibition at Wansee, including the copies of the minutes, of the notes. tells us about the meeting at which the murder, on an industrial scale, was accepted, without demur. The meeting was followed by drinks and by a pleasant meal. After all, it had been a productive meeting. Much had been achieved. There was cause for a celebratory drink.

I have been to the place where the conference was held. I can see it as I key; I have been in the rooms. And as I key I recall the advertisement in a recent Times about the killing of the Armenians by the Turks in 1915. It is the official Turkish position to deny a massacre, to deny Turkish responsibility for the undeniable deaths. The advertisement called for a world-wide recognition that the events di constitute a massacre, even a holocaust. But there is strong opposition, not just from the Turkish government, but from others who seek to confine that term to what happened in Europe from 1942 to 1944/45. The holocaust, not an holocaust.

Think well of the bull

1 The stance remains with me, that baleful stance. The feet apart, the torso, the head, the horns. Strength, power. Ready and always inclined to do what bulls do, though in this instance the bull’s needs are met by the killing of people, young and old, who are the annual tribute from Athens to Crete. An opera about a bull, an unusual opera, all the more unusual because the bull is the leading character, a character who is a natural force but is one who is self-aware, who reflects on his condition and finds it wanting. A bull who dies, a bull whose death prompts our sympathy. A remarkable opera.

2 The setting and the music also remain in the memory. The slow-moving sea, continually dipping and rising. displayed on a backdrop, was a reminder of the inexorable power of nature, and so of the Minotaur’s insatiable appetite for fresh provender. The sunlit Crete, the arrival beach for the latest of the black-sailed cargoes, was evoked. Below was the domain of the Minotaur, a corrida in which the Minotaur was master, the killing ground, an arena where, in a contest as unequal as that between a deer and a lion, the Athenians were killed, to the cheers of the underground spirits in the balcony. Powerful stuff.

2.1 Ah, the music. Undoubtedly, it was original; and it would have been easy to determine the composer. A 100 years ago, the younger Mr Strauss assaulted the Viennese sensibilities which had been accustomed to the older man's compositions and to the compositions of young Mr Mozart and his kind. An evening with Mr Birtwhistle must be something like those evenings with the younger Strauss. Discordant, tuneless are two terms which come to mind. Yet it was worthwhile to give the ears a chance, to attend to the sounds; it was worthwhile to receive them along with the sharp lighting, the set, the shrieks of the underground scavengers, the underground spirits, who were subordinate companions to the ravaging of the bull. Give the music a chance.

3 The originality is apparent. It is an opera about the familiar story of the annual delivery of Athenians to their certain, terrifying death in the underground realm of the uncaring beast, the Minotaur. A monster, we shudder, one who, in the dark, will be indifferent to the terror, to the screams of the living. A dark, underground place. Yet the bull is no mere automaton. This bull is conscious of his dark place and of his recollection of another place. We are accustomed to thinking about the living beings who will constitute the Minotaur’s food; we now think about the Minotaur’s imprisonment within the maze. He too seeks a release.

4 Of course, he has to die. The myth requires that Theseus must triumph, that Theseus must kill the beast. Yet when he does, as surely he will, it will be a step-brother who kills his step-brother, an inter-familal killing. Whilst the myth must be honoured, there is a time in the combat when Theseus seems to be vanquished. His step-brother, simultaneously magnificent beast and imprisoned human, could have been the one to strike his step-brother. Yet the myth requires that Theseus should retrieve his stabbing sword, should be able to outwit the human beast and plunge the weapon ito the beast’s chest. The beast, now victim, dies slowly, alone, in the darkness of the underground. And we are affected. We feel the death. We feel that we have been spectators not to the triumph of Theseus but to the destruction of the Minotaur. Theseus, meanwhile, escapes from the maze by following the Ariadne trail. He, alone, returns from the dead. They sail to Athens, white sails billowing.

5 And, in reflection, what remains. Ah, the bull remains. An animal, a beast, which gives it name to the opera and which is the main performer. The destructive, reflective bull. A tale which, in the re-telling, enables us to hear a voice, a roaring voice, which is otherwise never heard. The world of the above-ground and of the under-ground. The complementarity of the music (the sounds), the settings, the backdrop, the new language - all components of an opera which is about the Minotaur. 'Explain clock-wise', said the master. The acolyte did so. 'Ah', said the master, 'but explain it from the point of view of the clock'.

Mr M was right

1 During a rummage through old papers, I came across a review, dated 18 March 2006, of Eugene Onegin at the ROH. It was the production which Christa and I attended on my recent birthday, a production which prompted the subsequent disapproving comments. So how did Richard Morrison's views compare with our ones? Read on.

2 'Perhaps opera bosses give half-time pep talks, like football manages. That would explain why, after an Act 1 as lively as washed-up seaweed, this Royal Opera's new staging of Onegin mustered a few late flickers of drama.' was the opening sentence of Mr M's review. The singer who sang the title role 'sang with customary suavity ... and acted with customary impassivity. A broom might have been livelier'. The sets? '..a mishmash of wimpy Romantic paintings and Hollywood sunsets'. The onstage pond? A novelty. And the staging? 'Otherwise, the staging seemed desperately old-fashioned (peasant girls doing dull dances in immaculate smocks), orr inept (the ball scene squashed on to a finy strip of stage), or simply under-directed.'

3 As you can see, I was sufficiently struck by the congruence between Mr M's views and C's and mine to record it on the blog. We choose to attend without recalling the two-year old production - there's been many an opera in between; if we had recalled, if we have our comments on recent productions in front of us as we select our operas for next year and the year beyond, would we have decided not to attend. Maybe. Just as likely - or perhaps more likely - would be the inclination 'give the production a second chance'.

4 And what about the status of Mr M's reviews? Are they to be read before the production or are we to attend the production untainted? A choice. The pre-reading may steer our perception: we may be looking out for what Mr M touched upon. A subsequent reading, that is, a reading subsequent not only to attendance but also to the posting on the blog, is a sterner test - is it? - but we have a foundation for a confidence in our judgement, compared to Mr M's

Don

1 The day's programme began well with lunch in Fortnum & Mason. We took our seats opposite one and other at the long, refrectory tables. We chatted, undisturbed by the neighbouring conversations, selected, and continued to chat and to eat. Two hours passed companionably. By the time we left, the tables had been laid for tea, and the first of the places had been taken.

2 To Hatchards, to Hatchards, to browse and to browse, and even to buy. So many possibilities. So many books to add to those already on the shelves, each waiting its turn to be read. Rather like a harem where each of the women, bought or donated, wait on the Great Man's pleasure. From the books on offer, two were selected. The Thirty-Nine Steps will be given to a grandson. If he likes it, then there could be more from the same pen. A book of its time, I wonder how the young man will take to it. The Adventures of Don Quixote will be by the bed, there to be read a chapter at a time. The exemplary picaresque novel?

3 Simon Russell Beale spoke Milton's lines in corresponding exemplary fashion. Claire Tomalin spoke about the poet, whilst her colleague gave voice to them. Forty-five minutes of pleasure, listening to both. The pleasure of the lines being delivered remains with me. So does Milton and Shakespeare, for the former was born just a few years before the death of the latter. The overlap. The connexion across the centuries. I also registered that Milton secured a European reputation as a poet. And the creation of the heroic Satan, the angel who was thrown out of heaven as the result of a cosmic struggle and who sought a revenge by interfering with the divine order of the Garden.

4 And what of Onegin? He had flown from Germany to take the part. We agreed that the first Act had failed to engage. Tatiana, the dreamer, the vulnerable, the young woman who declares her love in a message to the new man. The new man who was so distant, who was insensitive to the young woman's feeling. The return of the love-letter, the advice to be more discreet. How unfeeling. And we were left without feeling for the exchanges.

4.1 Things were livelier in the second Act. The name-day, Lensky's distress as Onegin flirts with Olga. The quarrel, the challenge, the setting for the duel. Yet, whilst things were livelier, there remained the feeling, as we left, that the opera might be weak, that the failure to engage was not just the result of the particular performers. Before the evening, the opera had been amongst the preferred Glynbebourne ones. After the performance, the ranking for Glyndebourne has to be re-thought.

5 But what a high-cultural day, a tribute to London and to the companionable, shared tastes. Such a day gains from company. Of course it does. There is someone with whom to exchange the thoughts. And it's only when I speak that I know what I think. True?

No, it's not

1 Insofar as we thought at all, we guessed that it would not be La Fille du Regiment, nor would it be Don Pasquale. Still, we could expect a few tunes. After all, the opera had been composed by Donizetti. Now we know. Now that we've seen the opera, now that we've thought about it, now that your correspondent has spent read some of the reviews (on the web), I'm (we're) ready to say what was going on. A dark opera.

2 Yes, indeed. Ravenswood castle was an inhospitable place. There were no comforts there for a young woman. We sensed that straightaway as we took in the setting, the empty rooms, the windows (and the sense of constantly being seen), the men's (especially her brother's) concern for power and fortune. Money, and power, were the drivers. The exercise of a brother's power over his sister was to drive her into a marriage entirely of convenience. It had already driven her, it was clear, to comply with the brother's incestuous directions. As we watched the games, the first scene, in which Lucia lay, in white, upon a bed whilst her brother sat, in grey broadcloth, at a business desk, made sense. The castle was a place in which humanity and care, with the exception of the young woman's companion, had no place. It was no place for a fragile young woman, perhaps no place for any young woman.

3 If there was a breath of fresh air, if there was a person of natural good-will, then it must be the dispossessed owner of the castle, the man from the heather, as it were, Edgardo. He, in leather coat and kilt, be-sworded, was able to love the young woman, to express that love, and to be rewarded with hers. Alas, a man, even a man from the heather, with natural good-will, has to do what a man has to do. He must go about public business and leave the young woman (to the mis-handling of the others).

4 Those others continue the imprisonment. In concert, they sunder the link between the lovers. The young woman, in ritual white, is brought to the culminating submission of a marriage with the man, who seems aimably indifferent to the woman, before the audience, grey and indifferent too. She signs the marriage contract. Her sentence is life.

5 There was no surprise when the leather-coated, kilted, still sworded lover enters through a window. Bravura, bravado, sword against pistol. The man from the heather, and men such as he, must fail before the new men, the members of the dominant commercial class (who have done well out of the change of monarchs and who will remain in power for years, and years).

6 There has been a sense of the Gothic throughout the opera. The lighting, the Wolf's Tower, the sense of awful things in remote castles, madness in those castles. Now we come to the Grand Guignol. The young woman returns from the marriage bed in a bloodied white gown. Her husband is dead in the bed, killed by the young woman. She is mad. The man who loves her kills himself.

7 Such was our night at the opera. Ah, had we known what to expect, we should have been more receptive. Still, we know now, and we will be ready for a later production. In the meantime, we have also been reminded of the benefits of a review immediately after a performance. We have been reminded not just to ask 'Now, what was all that about?' but to treat the question seriously and to undertake the process of developing an answer.