A Land Without Shadows
24 May

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Well, as so often happens in May, having fooled us all with a warm spell, the climate has moved back to greyer and colder conditions.

And the general greyness means that, for a lot of the time, there are no shadows on the ground. We've still got the central heating off; it's not gotten that bad yet. And I've sloughed the winter clothes for another year whilst the lighter weight attire, short sleeves and all, is much in evidence.

I'm continuing with yoga and reiki at present. But I'm not sure. I think that something is due for a change in this area.

Saturday I was over at my parents'. It was an unscheduled stopover caused by their need to clear their loft in advance of workmen installing new insulation during the week. I was told that they'd managed to shift the smaller items but needed help with the bulkier and heavier stuff. My dad has just turned 84 and my mum is 81 this year and they had been clearing the loft. I was not best pleased.

So, I travelled over in the morning and helped them complete the job and made it very clear that I should have been there assisting from the outset.

In the afternoon, Ross and I went round to one of the large (now disused) churches in Waterloo for a local history exhibition and demonstration. It was a show of two halves. Inside the church (now used as a community venue and resource), there were stalls set out by various local history groups; outside there were demonstrations of various aspects of Saxon England. We talked to some music experts for a while.

Monday was my day off and was also my birthday. Almost the highlight of the day was the fact that my car passed its MOT. It doesn't seem like twelve months since its purchase but here I am re-taxing, re-insuring and servicing the machine.

Nice parts of the day also included receiving cards and greetings from family and friends including those sent by electronic means.

Ross and I did have one treat; we went to FACT in Liverpool to attend a re-broadcast of a live performance of La Bohème from the Metropolitan Opera in New York; apparently the first showing sold out so this was a bonus. It's a spectacular production by Franco Zeffirelli which looked very handsome under the gaze of the cameras. But the performance felt very half hearted as though Ramon Vargas and Angela Gheorghiu were phoning their appearances in from elsewhere.

One small giveaway here was the backstage cameras. Best moment was watching the Act II set being assembled and dis-assembled. Worst moment was watching the two principles come off stage after an emotional Act III with hardly a bead of sweat between them.

Given that this was a re-broadcast, I could have done without the two half hour intervals which stretched a short evening (musically speaking) to over three hours in length.

However, it was an interesting experience and one which we may repeat. Ross is quite keen to go and see John Addams's Dr Atomic in November and I may take Colin to see Massenet's Thaïs in December.

The other major artistic event of the week was another RLPO concert - this time conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. In this country, he is best remembered for his tenures at Glyndebourne and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. However, I remember him as a young man when he was the deputy here to Sir Charles Groves. In fact, I attended his last concert here when the second half was taken up with Brahms' Second Piano Concerto - the soloist being another young beginner, Vladimir Ashkenazy no less.

I enjoyed Schreker's Suite for The Birthday of the Infanta which had lots of glitter and opulence. Brahms' Variations on a theme of Haydn were given a considered and sometimes witty performance. Orla Boylan was the excellent soprano soloist in Berg's Three Fragments from Wozzeck which takes some of the lusher moments from that fractured score. Despite the dreadful production from Welsh National Opera three years ago, it almost persuaded me to give the piece another go. The orchestra let rip for Richard Strauss's Suite from Der Rosenkavalier.

So, it was a funny mix of music. Nothing was out of place or wrong. The orchestral work was neat, tidy and thoroughly professional. But there was no one thing to get your teeth into and so the whole evening felt unfocused.

With some of my birthday money, I bought a couple more of the Chandos series of Opera in English recordings - both conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras whose version of Cosi fan tutte I enjoyed recently.

The Hansel and Gretel is an absolute delight and makes me want to go and see this delightful work sometime soon. It's been a decade since I last saw it in the theatre. The soloists were uniformly good and the overall presentation and orchestral work was very good. A delight from beginning to end.

Janacek's The Makropulos Case is a completely different affair. Again, it's on my list of operas I want to see again some time - it's nearly twenty years since I last saw this one. Taken from a live performance, it's both propulsive and expansive at the same time which I suppose is part of having to project the piece out into the vast spaces of the London Coliseum. This too will bear repeated listening.

Having listened to the Old Testament recently, I'm just about finished listening to the New Testament. Once again, it's fascinating to note what was familiar and what not; The Gospels of Matthew and John but not Mark or Luke, parts of Acts but not really the epistles and letters and really not the Revelation of St John the Divine at all. Once again, I sense study material is to hand.

I've also finished off the last of Philip Reeve's quartet of novels about a dystopian future of predatory moving cities. The very end was satisfying but the book was over-long and seemed simply to be about moving the characters to new places and groupings on a chessboard with very little sense of personal development. Still, I've done with it and can go on to other materials.