Time has passed very quickly recently. A job interview. A trip to London to lead a course at UCL. Two Festivals and three operas.
Firstly, I didn't get the job that I went after. Which was desperately disappointing since I could have done an excellent job for them. I got feedback of a sort. However, the most helpful feedback came in the form of being told who had been offered the job. And frankly it was one of the weaker candidates being interviewed.
Which made it obvious that the job description and person specification had been pitched at too high a level for what was really required. I just wish that they had been more honest about what they actually wanted. Because then I would have made a very different pitch to them. And maybe would have ended up being employed there. But hey. Maybe that just means that, despite appearances, I'm not supposed to go and work there.
Conversely, it was very good to return to UCL and teach a course there. Even after over two years, I walked down that corridor to be greeted by a chorus of welcomes. There were many things that I disliked about working there and I would not dream of returning. However, the team spirit is something extraordinary.
Anyway, on with the operas. First up was La Périchole
by Jacques Offenbach at the Buxton Festival. Previous visits there have served up such
unusual delights as Schubert's Fierrabras,
Verdi's Un giorno di regno and
Shostakovich's The Nose. Who says
that being away from the capital has reduced my operatic intake?
Being operetta, La Périchole is not big on verisimilitude even though
it is purportedly based on real life events. Set in Peru, there is plenty of
opportunity for local colour in the music and the dressing. It was a jolly evening
and great fun. I liked Victoria Simmonds as the heroine. She was ably supported by
Richard Coxon as her lover, Piquillo.
Mark Curtis and Peter Savidge took the comprimario rôles of Panatellas and Don Pedro. Eric Roberts pretty near stole the show as Don Andrès. As with his performance in the Verdi last year, he gets the laughs and the applause without unbalancing the work as a whole.
Andrew Greenwood conducted a lively performance and Aidan Lang kept the whole thing going at a reasonable lick.
There are a few operas still on my list of works I should like to see for the first time. Lakmé and Manon Lescaut are two near the top of that list. Adriana Lecouvreur by Francesco Cilea has also been there for some time. Hats off to Holland Park Opera for giving me the chance.
You'll remember that I've already seen Mascagni's Iris and Cilea's L'Arlesiana there in summers past. In fact, these summer opera festivals really do supplement the staple opera fayre available throughout the rest of the year.
It was a very glamorous evening. Peter Rice's designs and Tom Hawkes' direction set a tone of straightforward opulence. John Gibbons conducted with a sweep and dash appropriate to the flair of the music. Christine Bunning looked like Josephine Barstow in the title rôle but sounded infinitely better than the Dame would have done. Rosalind Plowright gave us a loud and unsubtle Principessa. She's gone back to being a mezzo having fucked her voice by pretending to be a soprano. She got the applause but, unlike Eric Roberts, it was a very ungenerous performance.
Justin Lavender was fine as the tenor hero, Maurizio, but the palm for the evening went to Charles Johnston in the supporting baritone rôle of Michonnet. Some few days on and I'm still humming the big tunes. Now that's a good test of a good night out. There was a tube strike in London on the day of the performance. I probably walked five miles in order to attend. I got blisters on both feet. But it was worth it.
Finally, Erismena by Francesco Cavalli. Not my kettle
of fish this really. Too much arioso and not enough aria. Single voices mostly.
A little, occasional sinewy intertwining of voices. Just one final concerted
number. But then, that's what operas were like in 1656.
Everything was functional on stage. The band played well for David Adams. The cast acquitted themselves handsomely. I just felt that I was there as a duty rather than as a pleasure.
Elsewhere, everything continues. Ross appears to have taken to communicating with me via greetings card and email. He doesn't seem to have cottoned on to the fact that I have been reflecting back to him his own lack of communication for some months now. In fact, he seems to think that everything is well between us.